


A Guide to the Morphology of Magic

by wendlaa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Auror Partners, Bad magical linguistics, Complete, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Time, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Like really slow burn I'm not kidding, M/M, Minor Violence, Muggle Culture, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Road Trips, Set in 2002, Slow Burn, Virginity Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-08-24 14:23:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 64,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16641888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendlaa/pseuds/wendlaa
Summary: When Draco Malfoy is hand picked to investigate a string of curses cropping up in Muggle communities in North America, the last person he wanted to be traveling with was Harry Potter. Still, duty calls, and the two set off on an adventure chasing down mysterious curses, sleeping in cramped hotel rooms, and trying to navigate their newly formed post-War selves as they make their way through small towns and long, dark stretches of highway.





	1. Laurel Fork

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Liddy and Julia for making this process as AMAZING as it has been. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

I.

The assignment arrived by folded, flying paper just after lunch. The folded note spun dizzily through Draco’s shared office, crashing itself nose first into the edge of his desk before falling pitifully to the floor. Across the room, his officemate, a tired looking wizard by the name of Martin, glanced over in mild disinterest. Draco leaned over the side of his chair and plucked up the note, unfolding it over his most recent case notes. He was sorely behind, and could use with a day of catching up.

But playing catch-up seemed to be the last thing that this loathsome department was about to let him do. Lips catching downward at the corners, Draco’s eyes scanned the note.

_Mr. Malfoy_

_Please report to Ampitheatre 16 at 13:00 for new field assignments._

_Ellingsworth_

Hannah Ellingsworth was the head Curse-Breaker. She was also every bit as inconvenient as she could possibly be when it came to making sure that Draco had only the barest amount of time possible to finish the unwieldy paperwork that came along with each new field assignment. Draco was sure that Ellingsworth wasn’t very fond of him. Which, well… fair. There were few and far between that were fond of Draco by his family name alone. He’d only just begun to have small talk about the weather with Martin, and they’d been sharing an office for just over a year now.

Nowadays, he kept to himself. Not that he had been particularly social _before_ , but now he found himself to be muted. He tried to call up some of his more rancorous behavior from his school days (the good ones, that is), but he was just _tired_ . After… _after_ , Draco had kept to himself, sat for his N.E.W.Ts, and then paid a very generous donation in order to even be _seen_ for his interview with the Ministry.

At least he was smart. That, Draco could say with certainty. He’d gotten marks in seven N.E.W.Ts and that was enough to slap down on Ellingsworth’s desk in a hope that maybe he could get by without a big to-do over his name. Everyone _else_ might have found some serious joy in remembering the punishment his father got when the war had ended, but, well… He _was_ his father, and Draco couldn’t bring himself to feel much more than a hollow emptiness every time someone said, “Oh, _Malfoy?_ Lucius Malfoy’s son?”

For Draco’s part (small as it was, in the grand scheme of it all), he had sat on a very tense and uncomfortable trial, seventeen and frightened and squirming while his bare-bones character witnesses testified that he had been acting under the duress of his parent’s wishes, and threat of death. Which he _had,_ but that didn’t stop the guilt and the nightmares and the knowing that he could live to be a hundred and still not quite reach the redemption he owed.

He’d been acting under something else, too. Maybe just a little. Something that Draco was worried might still be inside of him, generational, passed from father to son. Something dark, something evil, that he wouldn’t otherwise be able to escape. It was the starring number in the many nightmares Draco had found himself plagued with since the last dregs of his teenage years. His own hand, lifting his wand, doing things he couldn’t fathom to speak in his waking hours. He often thought that it said something about him, something _good_ , that he woke horrified and shaking and pouring sweat.

Taking his wand, Draco tapped the back of his wrist. A glowing _12:48_ appeared before he shook it away.

“Field assignments,” Draco said, standing up from his seat and grabbing his Ministry-issued robes from over the back of his chair. They weren’t as nice as ones he would have tailored for himself, but he supposed that kept him humble.

“Mm,” Martin grunted, and didn’t look up from his notes. Draco noted that a paper airplane had not come for Martin.  

Draco left him behind and headed out into the hall. His wing of the Ministry was mostly quiet, not bustling with witches and wizards like the rest of the place. Curse-breakers were particularly hands on, and Draco spent most of his time out in the field, or working on paperwork. He liked curse breaking. It was just this side of challenging, while leaving the grunt work of catching the cursers to the Auror department.

Amphitheater 16 was a bit of a walk from his office, which sat tucked at the very end of a long series of halls of his particular wing. Of course, like most things surrounding him these days, Draco was entirely sure that this office placement wasn’t by chance. His name was on the office, after all, right underneath Martin’s. No one wanted to walk by the golden-font _Malfoy_ everyday. And so Ellingsworth had shuttered him away. Again, though, like most things, Draco had come to find that this suited him quite well.

Ellingsworth was just clearing her throat at the bottom of the amphitheater when Draco scooted in through the doors. She was a tall witch, perhaps in her late forties, with sandy hair that was never out of its severe ponytail. He dropped to sit in the back row. There were a scattering of other Curse-breakers there, in their dark green robes. Moreover, there were an equal number of scarlet-robed Aurors, all straightening their shoulders to attention when Ellingsworth began to speak.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice needing no projection. The particular theatre they were in was on the small side. Draco’s eyes scanned the backs of heads, trying to pick out familiar coworkers. He could see Amelia Tucker, if only because he could recognize her perfect pin-curls anywhere. The Aurors were more of a mystery than his own department, by miles. Draco steered clear of them if he could in common areas of the Ministry, but since their department was at least three floors beneath his own, he didn’t have to worry about it.

“I have your new assignments,” Ellingsworth said, waving about a stack of files in her hand. She was clearly speaking to the Curse-breakers, most of whom were glancing across the unspoken divide between themselves and where the Aurors were sitting. “The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has graciously decided to loan us a few bodies for these particular assignments. You’re each going to be paired up with an Auror, and the two of you will work together. This is more of _one_ assignment that I need everyone here working on. If you’re currently working on a caseload, those cases will be offloaded onto others in the department.”

Draco sat up a little straighter. He wondered if he was summoned to this meeting by mistake. It wasn’t that he was a poor Curse-breaker. He was _good_ at what he did, but Ellingsworth didn’t seem to want to bother with all the fuss that it would be sending a Malfoy out onto the more extreme cases. Draco had spent the last year and a half toiling through domestics and old, feeble family curses.

This seemed _important_ , and Draco already felt as if he were chomping at the bit to do something substantial.

“There’s been an uptick in curses placed in highly concentrated Muggle areas throughout North America,” Ellingsworth continued. “We were asked by the American Bureau to loan some of our best Curse-breakers. Their own resources are getting stretched thin.”

Draco’s stomach did flip then. _Best_.

“Your Auror will be there in case an apprehension needs to be made during your investigations. Now…” Ellingsworth paused the way she often did when she was about to drop the other shoe on an assignment. “Hands up, please, how many of you have traveled to North America previously.”

Two Auror hands went up, and one Curse-breaker.

“Right,” Ellingsworth said. “Martinez and Harper, you’ll be partnered. We’ll discuss Apparition for the two of you. The rest of you will be expected on flights to America and Canada in the morning. I trust each and every one of you remember that earning marks on your N.E.W.Ts in Muggle Studies was _paramount_ for your positions.” Her eyes glowered over them all, and one of the Aurors was shifting uncomfortably.

Draco’s own stomach fell. He _did_ earn a N.E.W.T in Muggle Studies, because it _had_ been paramount for a position of dealing with Muggle populations. He hadn’t had to deal with Muggles until now, and he wracked his brain to even remember what a _flight_ was supposed to mean in terms of Muggles.  It wasn’t something he’d ever studied beyond the required courses in Hogwarts, and after the war he had, more or less, just hoped that he could skirt ever having to talk to anyone about blood purity ever again in his life.

Shame bloomed fresh in Draco’s gut and he pursed his lips tight together. He wondered now if he had been chosen less for his abilities, and more as a punishment. _Wouldn’t it be a laugh, just absolutely drole, if we sent Malfoy of all people to slum about with Muggles?_ He was feeling less certain by the second.  It was common knowledge that Ellingsworth was a… had been… her parents were… Draco’s brain shuttered through several different iterations of what he was trying to parse through, jerking to a halt before he finished a purist thought.

Ellingsworth was _Muggleborn_ , Draco forced himself to think. And that was _fine_. (It was.)

Still, he was now starting to see why she had summoned him here.

“Young and Travis,” Ellingsworth began to read. A Curse-breaker with brown skin and sleek black hair popped up from her seat, as well as a barbarian of an Auror, twice the width as Draco in the shoulders. They greeted each other rather shyly before Ellingsworth handed them a file, and gestured for them to sit back down and start going over it together.

“Billings and Grant.”

“Tether and Harkins.”

Draco watched as the Curse-breakers began to pair off with their Aurors, and his eyes flickered over the remaining few. From his seat in the back row, he couldn’t gauge much about the rest of the Aurors, but he was hoping for what looked like a slight witch with pale blond hair in a high ponytail, if only because she seemed pleasant and eager to be there.

“Malfoy and Potter.”

It was some cruel, twisted joke spun up by Ellingsworth to punish him, Draco was certain now. He could barely hear the rest of the soft murmur of the others in the room with how hard his blood was now rushing in his ears. A dark, shaggy head turned to peer across the Curse-breakers in the room, and then craned a little further over his shoulder. Draco caught his eyes, and it felt like all the air had just been sucked right out of the room. This was a joke. A sick, cosmic joke. He couldn’t _fathom_ what he had done (recently) to deserve such a bloody cruel fucking joke.

From the looks of it, Potter wasn’t particularly pleased either. He stood and headed down to the front of the amphitheater. Draco hesitated, his heart pounding obnoxiously in his chest until it began to hurt.

“ _Now_ , if you would please, Mr. Malfoy.” Ellingsworth didn’t sound particularly lenient, so Draco forced himself to rise on legs that felt as if he had lost his bones. He kept his chin high, which gave him a look of arrogance more than confidence, as he made his way down to the front.

“I trust there will be no issues with the arrangement?” Ellingsworth asked, her voice sharp. Potter shook his head, his expression surprisingly blank. He hadn’t grown in height since the last time Draco saw him, sitting for their N.E.W.Ts together in Defense Against the Dark Arts, after everything, after _everything_. But he had grown in width, broader in the shoulders than Draco remembered. They hadn’t spoken back then, and it seemed as if Potter was about to see if he could make it through this situation without speaking to him now, either.

Draco followed suit and shook his head.

“Good,” Ellingsworth said, handing the case notes to Potter and dismissing them with a wave of her hand. They both hesitated a fraction of a second, then Potter took the lead back towards the seats, dropping down in the front row. Draco sat in the seat to his left, feeling like he was thrown back in school and being forced into proximity with the one person that hated him more than anything on the planet.

To be fair, the feeling was mutual. Had been mutual. Might still be mutual.

Draco had _known_ , logically, that he and Potter both worked for the Ministry and that someday they might, perchance, cross paths. He hadn’t really given much more thought than that to what he might do, or say, or not do, or not say. He couldn’t help but wonder if Potter had given him the same consideration, or if he had put him out of his mind the minute he could.

Weasley, didn’t he follow in Potter’s shadow like a puppy? Had he become an Auror, too? Weasley’s career choices weren’t reported in the dailies, so Draco couldn't be certain. He was only lucky that he was not having to deal with the inseparable duo again. And the third, Granger. _Granger_ , Malfoy knew without a doubt, was in fact somewhere in the Ministry. She prided herself as having completely revamped the Muggle Liaison Division, and _that_ had been all over the dailies for weeks after it’s implication.

Potter flipped open the case file, but before Draco could, awkwardly, try and peer over his shoulder, Ellingsworth had called the last of the teams and was clearing her throat to get their attention again. Draco looked up, grateful to focus on anything other than the man beside him who seemed to be radiating with something unpleasant.

“You’ll find your case notes, boarding passes, and suggested packing list in your files,” Ellingsworth said. “As well as instructions on where to go and who to speak to when you get to  your destination. You’ll also find copies of the American Bureau’s field notes. Read through the notes carefully. Go home, pack, and I expect to hear you’ve all boarded your flights tomorrow.”

Before Draco could turn his gaze back to Potter, he was up and out of his seat, making a quick exit from the amphitheater-- taking the whole of the case file, along with any information Draco might need, with him.

Well, fuck.

 

II.

Hekate hooted in annoyance when Draco stepped from his fireplace into his quiet, London flat- the Wizard’s ward, thank you, just north of the entrance to Diagon Alley. His massive, Great Grey owl fluttered her wings in irritation on her roost, and it didn’t take but one sweep of the eyes around his sitting room to notice the white-faced barn owl sitting on his coffee table, looking quiet and dignified.

“Who let you in?” Draco muttered, irritated. It didn’t much matter, did it? If there had been ill-intent with the owl, it wouldn’t have gotten passed his wards with its wings still attached. The creature cooed lazily and stuck out its foot, to which a rather fat looking envelope was attached. Draco went quickly to unburden the owl, carefully undoing the twine and tipping the envelope over into one hand.

It was his copy of the case notes, rolled up and stuffed into a new envelope, along with his boarding pass that had his name and the time of his Muggle flight. There was more, too, and it spilled out of his hand and onto the coffee table. There was a hard plastic card with his Ministry ID picture, but it wasn’t moving like normal. It had his name, his _weight_ , his height, and other identifying information that felt all too invasive to be plastered about on a card.

There was also a Muggle passport, which, again, had more information than Draco felt strictly comfortable just passing out to strangers in the world.

There was no note from Potter, but Draco assumed that the owl belonged to him. The owl peered at him somewhat expectantly, though Draco wasn’t sure what for. Hekate made an angry noise from her perch. She hated visitors, and pretty much every other living creature other than Draco. (He secretly like that quite a bit.) 

He stood and went to open his window. “Go on, then,” he encouraged. The barn owl narrowed its already slit eyes and ruffled its wings before it took off with one great sweep of its wings, narrowly clipping Draco as it swept out of his flat and into the evening sky.

Shutting the window, Draco went to pamper Hekate, giving her a treat and rubbing his fingers through her feathers until she forgave him for even so much as looking at their earlier intruder. Then, he settled on his couch and looked over the documents and field notes that Potter had sent over. He found, folded up awkwardly underneath some of the more important bits, a sloppily written guide on getting to the Muggle airport, and how to get onto the plane. It certainly didn’t look like Ellingsworth’s handwriting. He wondered if she’d gotten herself a new assistant. If so, she really ought to complain.

He set it aside for the case notes, which were much more interesting. Curse-breakers in America organized everything differently, but all the same, he was able to understand this. _This_ was his element. And even if Ellingsworth had chosen him to go to America as a punishment, he wasn’t about to let that stop him from doing what he was, quite frankly, excellent at. Even if he had Potter breathing down his neck the entire time, waiting for him to slip up and do something… evil, or whatever it is people thought he was up to, these days.

With a crack of magic, Dandelion appeared at the edge of the sofa, her big, elf ears bobbing as she rocked back and forth on her feet. The house elf beamed and wrung her hands in the bright yellow smock he’d had fashioned for her. Draco couldn’t help appreciating the anticipation of his needs.

“Mr. Malfoy will be wanting to eat dinner soon?” Dandelion asked, swaying on her toes, then back down again to the flats to her feet. Draco _didn’t_ feel much like eating, but he knew he was going to have to.

“Something light, please,” he said absently, glancing up from the field notes. Dandelion looked at him like he was the sun, and he had a bit of a preen over it.

“Tilapia is pleasing to Mr. Malfoy?”

It did sound good. “Thank you,” Draco confirmed, and Dandelion disappeared again with another crack. His flat wasn’t particularly large. It was… big, but more modest than the Manor had ever been. There was two bedrooms, an office, the sitting room, the kitchen, and a loft over the main foyer that mostly sat unused. He imagined that Dandelion had taken it for her own and made a little nook up there with trinkets she found pleasing that had been brought back from Draco’s field assignments.

Speaking of… his attention zeroed back down onto the papers in his hands now.

> **_Date_ ** _: 05/22/2002_
> 
> **_Location_ ** _: Hurricane, WV_
> 
> **_Lead Investigator_ ** _: █████ ████_
> 
> The information that was redacted was done the old fashioned way, which meant even a sneaky tap of Draco’s wand wouldn’t reveal what the Americans felt was too much information.
> 
> _Initial investigation of H found subject ████ ███████ (female, 26, Muggle) inflicted with Dark Magic resulting in compulsive need to remove own bottom-left rib. Present damage to subject was self-inflicted. Healer ████ called upon to assess damage. Damage included broken skin, object-wounds and bruising. No rib removal present upon arrival of Healer ████. Curse-Breaker ████ reported that upon attempts to restore subject to un-cursed state, subject would beg for lower left rib to be removed. Three (3) counter-curse attempts were made before successful removal. Subject was Obliviated._

The field notes went on like that- pages of them, some longer and more involved, others one or two sentences detailing the personnel present, the nature of the curse, and what happened after. The more gruesome ones put Draco off his tilapia when Dandelion brought it out for him to eat at the sofa rather than the dinner table. Some of the descriptions sent his skin tingling, the scars across his chest a reminder of what these curses could do, what magic could ruin, and what it couldn’t fix.

He had an urge to sent Hekate off with a note to Potter. _What the fuck???_ He imagined writing. It wasn’t his fault that any serious Curse-breaking had been all but off limits to him for the past year and some change. This was his first real shot at proving his worth and it was already proving to be nauseating. Some of the longer field notes made him dizzy with the amount of detail, as if the writer had been under his own curse to fill every line on the parchment with enough detail to leave the backs of Draco’s eyes stinging.

By the time Draco decided he was done for the night, his head was reeling.  When he set aside the field notes, the rest of the package came back into focus, strewn across his coffee table. He had to pack, and he had to figure out how to get to Heathrow, and he had to figure out how to even get on a Muggle flight. Draco rarely felt out of his depth in this job, if only because Ellingsworth was determined to keep him on dry land.

Dragging himself to his feet, Draco gathered up the rest of the notes, including the scribbled instructions on how to get to the _airport_ , and headed through the flat to his bedroom. It was going to be a long night, he supposed, and he didn’t plan on getting much sleep to begin with. He could only hope that he and Potter didn’t kill one another before they got to America.

 

III.

Airports? Airports. Bad. Draco’s sleep-addled brain couldn’t manage much more than that as he weaved uncomfortably through Muggles who seemed even more serious about personal space than wizards were. The scribbled directions were hard to read under the best of circumstances, and felt almost impossible to parse while he was trying to navigate an _airport_. To Draco’s knowledge, and airport was simply a large building where Muggles went to torture themselves because they hadn’t figured out a more efficient system of traveling long distances.

There were so many signs that pointed exactly nowhere. Draco considered himself intelligent. In fact, he was certain that he was _above_ average intelligence. And yet, a Muggle airport was proving to be even more challenging than the fourth-year hedge maze. Even thinking about it, even in such vague terms, causes a twinge of displeasure at his temples.

Draco managed to work out where to go with his luggage- charmed, of course, so that any Muggle looking at it would find it to be perfectly average. His scribbled note had said the Muggle workers would peek inside his baggage while he went through security, which Draco found a touch obscene. Still, he took it to the Muggles behind the counter, and stood in awe at how slow and inefficient this whole ordeal was. When he finally had his baggage checked, a line at his security gate had formed, and was moving at a crawl.

The morning’s anxiety was starting to slow it’s simmer in his stomach, if only because the entire ordeal was turning out to be more mundane and boring than Draco could have possibly imagined. He had his little plastic card with his non-moving face and all of his far-too-invasive information, as well as the little paper boarding pass with all sorts of letters and numbers that Draco couldn’t possibly hope to parse. The scribbled note had said that he had to find the _terminal_ (which he had already done) and the _gate_ , which on his pass said 34.

The wand was a tricky business. The note had said to cast the same glamour over it, and not touch it until he’d gone through security. It was shoved into the leg of his boot now, just sitting hidden underneath his trousers. When Draco got to the front of the line, he fumbled quite stupidly handing over his boarding pass and the falsified identification card. The tired Muggle working his side of the line didn’t even glance twice, and waved him through.

There was _more_ , because on the other side of the line there were… Draco could only picture them as gateways. They looked like metal and plastic door frames that were stood side by side, with lines of people waiting to go through them. Down at the end, one beeped loudly, and the Muggle trying to shuffle through stepped back and dug in his pockets before dropping a clatter of Muggle coins in a basket, sat on _another_ machine that toted bags and purses and shoes and jackets through a metal maw and out the other side. 

_No_ , Draco thought desperately. _This is far too much. I’m backing out_ . _I’ll go back. Sod my luggage. Ellingsworth is trying to kill me._

A hand touched him plainly between the shoulder blades. The touch was so unfamiliar that it took all of Draco’s muscle control not to jump out of his skin. It was brief, this touch, only long enough to gather his attention to the man sidling up to his left. Potter looked far more at ease and put together than Draco could ever hope to have managed. He had some kind of bag strapped to his back, with more comfortable Muggle clothing than Draco had thought to wear. It took Draco a moment to really comprehend that Potter was there, standing by him, looking less furious than he had the night before at the assignment briefing.

“Just follow my lead,” Potter said, not really looking at him when he spoke. His voice wasn’t filled with camaraderie, either. It was a bit flat. For his part, Draco felt his stomach turn watery in relief.

Draco wondered if half-bloods and Muggleborns just learned this kind of information by osmosis, or if Potter had taken his share of Muggle flights. Where would he go? Everyone and their grandmother knew about the horrific Muggles that Potter had grown up with. It was practically the new hero’s journey, told to little witches and wizards at night to get them to go to sleep. Still, Potter seemed to know exactly what he was doing, putting his things onto the conveyor belt, emptying his pockets of Muggle money.

Draco felt foolish, but he followed Potter’s lead just as he’d instructed. He was vibrantly aware of eyes on him. Or perhaps he was simply imagining it. He felt as if every single Muggle in the place could tell that he was not one of them, that he was an outsider trying to figure out their customs. When it got to be his turn to pass through the upright door frames, Draco drew up short and hesitated. The Muggle man on the other side, looking tired, waved him through with increasing impatience while Potter looked on, having already crossed, looking…

What was the look on his face? Smug seemed wrong, but perhaps something close to the enjoyment of seeing Draco debasing himself among the Muggles.

Passing the metal gateways was harmless. In fact, nothing even beeped. He gathered up his things on the other side and felt brightly accomplished.

Potter didn’t tell him to follow, but Draco did all the same, forcing himself not to feel a rush of shame at falling a step or two behind him. This wasn’t his father’s world, not anymore. He had no reason to feel ashamed or embarrassed for not following archaic, pureblood customs. Potter still wasn’t looking at him, which suited Draco just fine. This whole ordeal felt like it was going to be endless in the first place. He would rather not bite each other’s heads off before they even got on the… what was the Muggle word for it?

Ah, right. _Plane_. And as they weaved through the long, wide halls, Draco could see them out of the floor to ceiling windows that peered out onto the tarmac. With no frame of reference, Draco almost skidded to a halt looking out the windows. The planes were enormous, metal contraptions that took up more space than any single thing that wasn’t estate ought to do. Further out, Draco could see some of them rolling across the asphalt, looking as if they were narrowly avoiding clipping one another with their wing spans.

_Those things fly? Those are flights?_ Draco felt the words getting ready on his tongue, but the terminal was so crowded with Muggles that Draco didn’t want to risk drawing eyes on them. And, if he were being truthful, he didn’t feel like striking up a conversation with Potter, either. Potter wasn’t talking, and that suited Draco just fine for the time being.

Their gate was all the way at the end of one of the long, window-lined halls. They found seats facing the tarmac, and when they sat, Draco allowed there to be three seats between them. There was a flat, black box hanging on the wall with information that was already printed on their boarding pass: _LHR to CLT 9:03. Boarding 8:40._ Draco wasn’t stupid enough to pull out his wand to check the current time, and there weren’t any clocks hanging about.

“You’ll have to say something to me at some point, you know.”

Those were the most words Draco had heard Potter say all at once in years, and they immediately stroke a fire of irritation in his chest. _He_ wasn’t not saying anything.

“You weren’t talking either,” Draco said, his voice practiced and cool. “In fact, I think I remember one of us stormed out of the amphitheatre in a strop and I don’t believe it was me.”

He glanced from underneath his lashes, peering sidelong at Potter to catch his expression. He was _looking_ at him with that same expression that seemed so complicated to Draco. Was he making fun of him? Draco couldn’t tell, and that put him on edge. He ground his molars together, forcing himself to stare straight out the windows.

“I didn’t even know you were working at the Ministry,” Potter said. “So imagine my surprise when I’m told I’m being shipped off to who-knows-where and it’s with _you_ .” His voice sounded different then, and Draco’s jaw twitched, almost turning to look at him and just barely resisting the urge. “Come on,” Potter said, in a tone that sounded like goading. “Were _you_ pleased?”

No, but that wasn’t the point. Draco hadn’t thrown a tantrum. Not that he had been raised better than tantrums. To be fair, he _might_ have done, if Potter had struck around long enough to find out.

“It’s _me_ ,” Draco repeated instead, mocking Potter’s intonation with a drawl.

“Come off it,” Potter said with a snort. “You’re not insulted.”

...No, but that wasn’t the _point_.

Finally, Draco turned his head to look at him, and found Potter staring right back. His expression behind his glasses was calm, maybe amused. Draco still couldn’t suss out what it was about Potter’s face that made him feel as if he was being gently mocked. The three seats of space between them seemed excessive now, but Draco wasn’t about to be the one to move. So they sat, at an impasse, staring at one another in an increasingly uncomfortable silence.

“How did you land a job at the Ministry, anyway?” Potter asked, sitting forward in his seat a tad so he could rest his elbows on his knees. The motion was so relaxed that Draco found himself envious.

“I paid a lot of money,” Draco answered, because it was true, and because he didn’t feel like flagellating himself in front of Potter. It was the answer that he would have expected, anyway, and Draco was unsurprised to see the tension in his expression change. Potter’s face shuttered closed, and whatever amusement that he’d found in the situation was immediately brushed away.

“Right,” Potter said, voice flat. “Of course you did.”

_I also sat through my N.E.W.Ts like everyone else_ , Draco thought, quite bitterly.

The conversation dropped off, after that. Draco preferred the silence, so he didn’t bother to try striking it up again. Potter didn’t seem keen, either, and so they sat with their three chairs between them, each staring out over the tarmac and waiting for the Muggle announcer to tell them it was time to start boarding.

When it was time, Draco’s brain caught up with where he was, and what he was about to do. He had to get _inside_ one of those metal contraptions rumbling across the asphalt outside. He couldn’t quite comprehend the thing getting off the ground without magic. Getting onto the plane involved another long hall, though this one was warm and cramped. Draco shuffled, awkwardly, just behind Potter as they were shuttled like cattle. The end of the hall opened up flush with the door of one of the planes, roaring hot air. A young Muggle woman stood just inside the doorway, smiling and waving them into the plane.

It was _small_. Well, no. The whole contraption was big enough, but inside Draco felt the need to duck his head just a tad as he shuffled awkwardly down the middle aisle, rows and rows and rows of seats on either side of him, and then one more on the left-most side. The seats went nearly all the way to the back end of the space. The first few rows were much roomier, and Draco’s stomach sank the further Potter lead them back into the plane towards their own seats. Each row seemed to get smaller and more cramped than the last.

Finally, Potter stopped by a row pretty far back, though there were still ten or so rows to go behind them before the seats ended. He said nothing as he swung his bag off his back and lifted it up into a compartment that opened up over the seats. Draco, having brought nothing on board with him, simply slipped into the middle seat while Potter took the window. That was fine with Draco, if only because he was certain his stomach might drop out of his arse.

Flying, fine. Brooms? Absolutely in his element. But this? _This_? The seat was too small, and there wasn’t nearly enough room for his legs. They kept bumping up against the seat in front of him, and his arms felt too long and his shoulders too wide. He pressed his hands awkwardly in his lap and squeezed his elbows against his ribs. Potter, when Draco glanced, looked blessed with the same ease as he had in the terminal. His long limbs seemed to fold up just the way necessary to make sitting in these seats halfway bearable. 

Both of them were incredibly careful not to touch.

As the plane filled up, the Muggle attendants kept walking up and down the aisle, checking the overhead compartments. On Draco’s other side, a small Muggle woman, perhaps their age, had settled in with little wires connected to her ears, which connected to a little white rectangle in her lap. For all the things that Muggles did without when it came to magic, Draco was, frankly, floored by the amount of _things_ they had.

Several Muggle attendants stood in various intervals down the aisles of seats as the plane shuddered and rolled its way away from the little loading dock. Draco tried to pay attention, but his blood was rushing so hard in his ears that all he could focus on was keeping his vision from going tunnelled. He was _brave_ . He wasn’t _bothered_ by things. He’d wished he’d maybe studied a little harder about Muggle transportation, because the only thing he could focus on was this behemoth metal creature being unable to lift itself into the air, or perhaps growing too heavy somewhere over the water.

Potter was fine, which was annoying, but not enough for Draco to focus on it.

When the plane rolled itself for a while, there was a heavy rushing noise as it began to pick up speed, now in a straight line. The momentum made Draco feel as if he had left his stomach several hundred metres back on the asphalt. When the whole nose of the plane tipped up, Draco gave into instinct and slammed his eyes shut, breathing embarrassingly deep through his nose. He couldn’t _imagine_ what Potter was thinking, how much fun Ellingsworth had imagining him in this exact scenario.

“Look.”

Potter’s voice was quiet and close, right by his shoulder. Draco peeled open his eyes, his stomach and head not quite in sync anymore as he felt the weight of the ground drop away from beneath his feet. He looked, and Potter was leaned back away from the little oval window, and below, London was spreading out, smaller and smaller, the buildings and trees and roads looking like miniatures.

It made him dizzy, and Draco closed his eyes again, instead.

“I don’t like that,” Draco said, stupidly.

“Not quite like our flying,” Potter agreed.

Draco made a noise in the back of his throat, and leaned his head back against the seat. The knots of his braid pressed against his skin. It seemed every aspect of this was designed to be as uncomfortable as possible. He kept his eyes shut and tried very hard not to think about the miniature London just below his feet, or what the ocean might look like when he would, inevitably, look out the window again.  

 

IV.

_Nine_ hours. _Nine_.

Though he stood up all of three times to use the rickety, shaky, terrible, awful loo in the back of the plane, Draco still felt as if he’d run the entire length of Hogwarts’ grounds by the time the plane touched back down to the tarmac at CLT (which, Draco learned once the pilot announced over a little electronic intercom, stood for Charles Douglas International Airport).

After just taking off, Potter had spoken to him exactly twice. Once, it was tell him to budge up so he could go use the loo. The second was to ask Draco if he knew the name of their contact once they got to the other side. (Draco did; his name was Gregory Yeltz.) Even as exhausted as he had been getting on the plane, Draco hadn’t slept a single wink. The pitching and churning of the plane in the air had made him almost nauseous.

Though they’d left at nine in the morning, and the flight had been _nine grueling hours_ , it was only one in the afternoon when they landed in Charlotte, North Carolina. Getting off the plane was more of an ordeal than getting on, because all of the Muggles stood up as soon as the plane had pulled into the gate, which effectively caused the whole aisle to get backed up. Draco took back all his earlier marveling at the Muggles’ ability to create the flying machine in the first place, seeing as they couldn’t form an orderly queue to save their lives.

When, finally almost twenty minutes later, they shuffled off the plane with the rest of the Muggles who had been sitting far back, it was into another little hall connected to the door of the plane. Between the edges, Draco could feel _heat_ , and see flashes of bright sunlight. His brain felt sluggish. The furthest Draco had ever gone on a holiday was Paris, and the time change wasn’t as dramatic as this. The length of the flight had been exhaustive, but it was still the middle of the day in America.

They weaved through more Muggles, the American ones largely less concerned about personal space. Draco would be happy when he was back at home in his quiet, empty flat, taking an entire week off work after having been forced to brush shoulders with so many strangers. At the very least, Potter seemed just as annoyed about this as he was, and they even exchanged one annoyed glance when a woman barged her way between them walking in the opposite direction. They would have to collect their luggage from some other part of the airport, and while Draco would have been clueless on his own, Potter’s half-blood, Muggle-like instincts seemed to pull them right where they needed to go.

There was lots of standing about in an airport. There was standing about to get into the damn place, and then more standing about to get on the plane, then standing about inside the plane, and now there was standing about waiting for the holes in the wall and the looping conveyor belt to spit out their luggage. Draco’s wand hand itched. He could _accio_ the damn thing and be out of here in minutes.

Potter seemed used to standing. His luggage came out first, and Draco felt quite stupid indeed to be standing waiting for his to come around.

“Do you know where we’re supposed to be meeting Yeltz?” Draco asked, following after Potter through the crowds of Muggles.

“Yeah, he should be-- oh, there.”

As they came out of the terminal, a short, squat man with dark hair and a sweaty face was holding a little sign with _POTTER_ printed across the front. Draco did his best to stamp down any annoyance. He was here, too. In fact, he was imperative to helping out the American Bureau of Magic. Potter was an Auror, he probably couldn’t break some of the most common curses. It wasn’t his forte. Draco, on the other hand. It was his _art_. 

The sweaty little man got all red in the face as they approached, nearly dropping his sign. “Mr. Potter,” he said, in a voice that had the strangest, rolling accent that Draco had ever heard. It was almost impossible to understand him with the way he drew out every single vowel. “Well, if we aren’t pleased as peaches to see you here.”

_Oh no_ , Draco thought. 

“Er, likewise. Yeltz, is it?”

“Yes, sir,” Yeltz said, gesturing for them to follow. Draco fell just behind them on Potter’s left, while Yeltz practically bounced with each step on Potter’s right. He hadn’t been addressed.

“We’ve got y’all all set up,” Yeltz said brightly. “Got the best stuff, I’ll tell ya. Y’all know how to operate a Muggle car?”

Draco wished he wouldn’t say that so loudly. They were moving through an open atrium now, towards a small office door that none of the Muggles seemed to notice. Yeltz let them in, and inside there was a cozy little space with a few desks, and, thankfully, another few wizards working at them.

“Sorry, don’t mind all the mess,” Yeltz said, rubbing his hands together. “Temporary space, set ‘er on up on account of all y’all comin’ through here.”

Draco hadn’t seen any of the other Curse-breakers or Aurors. He wondered if the Bureau had requested more than just his group that Ellingsworth had sent over.

“It’s fine,” Potter said, in a voice that seemed to convey that it was, actually, fine.

“Kind of ya, Mr. Potter,” Yeltz said, dropping the sign on one of the desks. Potter’s name drew the attention of the two wizards working at the desks in the room, their eyes tracking them. “And this your Curse-breaker, here? I don’t believe I caught your name.”

Draco hadn’t given it to him, but now his stomach was sinking again the way it often did when he had to announce himself to another wizard. Clearing his throat, Draco nodded shortly. “Draco Malfoy,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Malfoy, it’s a right pleasure,” Yeltz said, reaching his hand out. Draco shook it, a little confused. It only occurred to him after Yeltz had dropped his hand that his surname didn’t carry much, or any, of the same weight that it did back home. It was fully possibly that Yeltz had never heard of him. Potter, sure. Every witch and Wizard their age or older knew his name. That was sensible. But who knew the minutiae of names involved in a war that didn’t even happen on your continent?

For the first time in Draco’s life, he felt the soothing balm of anonymity.

Almost giddy, Draco barely caught Yeltz laying out what he had for them. He was pulling out keys from a box on top of his desk, and a folded paper-- a map, Draco realized belatedly. Yeltz set two… boxes? Plastic boxes? Not really boxes, because they seemed to be devices. Rectangles with plastic and a screen, maybe. He also had _stacks_ of Muggle money, the paper kind. It didn’t look anything like the British Muggle money, either.

“So, we mapped everything out for you on here,” Yeltz said, opening the map. “Don’t you worry none, this baby is charmed to let you know if you’re goin’ off path. Figured it couldn’t hurt none, long as no Muggles get a hold of it. Course, woulda done the same to the car, but… well, best not risk it.”

Yeltz spoke so fast and slurred, dropping ends of letters and drawing out vowels that it was almost impossible for Draco to follow him. Thankfully, Potter was looking like he was having the same amount of trouble. Or, maybe not so much. It wouldn’t do if _neither_ of them knew what they were supposed to be doing from here.

“Right,” Potter said, nodding. _Liar_.

“So, we got your path all set up here,” Yeltz said, spreading open the map to show them. Draco stepped closer, leaning just over Potter’s shoulder to see better. The map had bright red lines detailing where they were to be going. There were fat, red dots marking towns and cities that now sounded familiar from the case files that Draco had read. Exhausted as he was, Draco couldn’t quite stop his brain in time before it began conjuring up some of the more explicit field notes that the American Curse-breakers had written up.

“First town is about two hours north of here,” Yeltz said, tapping a spot on the map. “What we got here is to have y’all go on and go back through places our Curse-breakers already been through. We got a lot of these incidents cropping up, and not enough bodies to go back through and figure out who’s causin’ a racket. Might not be the most exciting thing, what with all the work been done. But fresh eyes, now, can’t deny the value of that. Y’all said one of you could drive?”

“I can,” Potter answered.

Draco couldn’t possibly imagine how or when, but then again, there had been several long years that he and Potter hadn’t even so much as laid eyes on one another. Maybe Potter had picked up some particularly useful Muggle skills during his summers away from Hogwarts, or maybe even after the war. Draco, for his part, had _not_. Muggle life was completely beyond him. He knew what a car was, of course. Living in London was just about impossible without having to cross into the Muggle wards and dodge those monstrosities trying to cross the road.

They had to drive one, apparently.

“Why can’t we floo?” Draco asked, frowning. “We came all the way here on a Muggle… thing.”

“Airplane,” Potter supplied.

“ _Airplane_. What’s the point of Muggle transportation? You’ve got brooms in America, don’t you?”

Yeltz’s face got all pink in the cheeks and he looked even sweatier.

“Surely we do, Mr. Malfoy,” Yeltz said, and Draco could tell that the color and the sweat was from being insulted, rather than intimidated. “But we got someone out there cursing left and right in Muggle communities. Ain’t doing anyone any good if we have you scootin’ about on your brooms. All this is outside of the Floo Network, I’m afraid.”

Draco’s expression tightened, one lip curling up. “I trust we’re allowed to have our _wands_.”

Yeltz’s face looked like it was about to balloon up and off his neck. Potter shot Draco a look and shouldered himself in between them both.

“Don’t mind him,” Potter said. “It was his first time on a plane. He’s crabby.”

Yeltz didn’t seem all that soothed, but perhaps it was the novelty of the bloody Savior of their World standing right in his office, just another body to boss around, that brought his attention away from Draco. Yeltz’s face stayed red and damp as he began to fold the map back up. “Well, alright then. These here are some useful Muggle technology,” Yeltz continued as he pointed to the two little rectangles with screens. One was grey, and the other was a garish pink.

“Right, phones,” Potter said, easily. “I know how to use them.”

Yeltz’s eyes flickered to Draco. “How about you, Mr. Malfoy?”

“I’ll learn,” Draco said dully.

That seemed good enough for Yeltz, because he didn’t address Draco for the rest of the briefing. Back home, Draco had assumed that people disliked him more for the infamy of his name more than anything. Now, though, he was starting to see that he had gotten… a bit out of touch with other people. He didn’t have to speak to the Wizard he shared his office with, so he never did. He had a few conversations with the people he helped out in the field, but barely. All he had to do was go in, do his work, and leave.

And there were no friends in his life, not really. He had some correspondence with Zabini, but not much, and only by owl. Parkinson was married and having a most fabulous time being rich and pureblood in France. So, maybe he had lost his touch with people. Not that he had ever been particularly charming, but he had at least known how not to make others balloon up with indignation (if that hadn’t been his goal to begin with).

Now, though… Draco felt something deeply uncomfortable begin to unfurl in his chest. He followed after Potter and Yeltz, leaving the little office with their map and their keys and their Muggle phones. Back out into the atrium, where the afternoon sun was still high up in the sky, visible through the high windows.  Yeltz lead them back through the airport, dodging hurrying and irritated Muggles. When they emerged outside, it was in some kind of concrete structure, filled with evenly spaced, quiet Muggle cars. Yeltz lead them through the rows, towards the very end, where a black car was parked. It was quite big, with four doors and a fifth in the back that looked as if it opened upwards.

“You should make it to the first spot alright,” Yeltz said, his disposition sunnier now. Draco wondered if it was because he was about to be rid of him for the foreseeable future. They put their bags in the back (“the boot,” Yeltz called it) and then, finally, they were free to leave. Draco got in the passenger side door, having to fold himself up a little as he climbed in. The seat was pulled forward a little too far, and his knees brushed up against the dashboard. 

Potter didn’t seem as squished, but then he had considerable less leg. Despite having traded his Muggle world for the Wizarding one, Potter seemed far more comfortable than Draco thought he had the right to. He was navigating every new situation that left Draco’s head reeling with enviable ease. Draco wanted to shout at him to look a little confused, please, for his own dignity. Draco watched as Potter stuck the key into a slot, and twisted it.

The car roared to life, but Draco was expecting that, at the very least. His seat rumbled under his legs, and he leaned heavily against the back, blinking stupidly out the front window. To his credit, Potter did seem to know what he was doing as he backed the thing out of the spot it had been parked in, and managed to get them going front-ways again. It was _quiet_ in the car, despite the dissonant sound of the engine.

Alone, more or less, for the first time… ever.

No, that wasn’t quite true, was it? Draco’s mind flashed, stupidly, back to their youth. They were alone in the train carriage when Draco had slammed his foot into Potter’s face. They were alone in the bathroom when Potter had… Draco’s mind jerked to a stop, his skin prickling uncomfortably beneath his shirt. As the car moved, it moved in fits and starts, Potter seeming to know exactly what to do as he pulled out into a sea of other cars on the road. The motion made Draco nauseous, and he found himself clenching his fingers tightly around the edge of his seat.

It was worse than the plane. _What_ was wrong with Muggles that they kept inventing metal contraptions for transportation and making them the worst experience known to man, magical or otherwise? His stomach twisted unpleasantly every time the car went vaulting forward, and then slowing to a quick and shuddering stop.

“Where did _you_ learn to operate this thing?” Draco found himself asking, if only to find something to focus his attention on other than how exhausted and ill he felt.

“Hermione,” Potter said. “Never got around to it before.”

“Why’s that?” Draco pressed. Potter, who had spread the map out over the dashboard in front of them, took a turn when it asked, quite pleasantly, if they would please take the next right. The motion made Draco’s stomach lurch, and he felt all the more miserable.

“Oh, you know,” Potter said, voice honey-dipped in sarcasm. “There had been a war on, and all.”

Draco lurched a little as the car rolled to another stop. He closed his eyes, not able to handle the cars and buildings sweeping by. It was nothing like taking the train, with it’s set track and it’s familiar scenery. Even the sway of the train had become familiar over the years. Draco couldn’t tell if this was just how Muggle transportation was, or if Potter was just a particularly bad driver.

“Come off it, I beg of you,” Draco said, sounding pitiful to his own ears. “I feel like I might actually hurl.”

There was a beat of silence, in which Draco was certain Potter was glancing at him to see if he was being sincere. Then, he said, “Don’t throw up in the car.”  


V.

Draco didn’t throw up in the car, but it was a near thing.

Eventually, the lurching of the vehicle came to an end, once they left the city of Charlotte, exchanging the maze of buildings and webbing of streets for trees and trees and more trees. The roads rose and fell in a way that left Draco’s stomach floating in his torso, but for the most part it was more manageable than city driving had been. He took to look at the map instead, charmed to tell them whether or not they were going the right direction. When he tapped the names of the cities and towns, the map showed little miniature layouts, and Draco filled the first hour of the drive with that.

The air between Potter and himself was mostly silent.

The first marked town on the map wasn’t exactly a town. _Laurel Fork_ was just a little smattering of buildings, more like, located along the highway. It wasn’t even in North Carolina, as far as Draco could tell. According to the map, they would drive right across a state line into Virginia to get to it. As he tapped the map with his wand to show a miniature of the town, the state of the town didn’t look promising.

“Where are the field notes?” Draco asked, peeking over his shoulder into the back seat of the car where Potter had tossed his backpack. He reached behind and pulled it into the front seat, wedging it down between his feet.

“Front pouch,” Potter replied, glancing over at him. “Why?”

Draco dug them out, flipped through the papers until he found the one labeled _Laurel Fork, VA_. “Brushing up,” Draco answered. He pushed the map back up onto the dashboard and lay the field notes out across his lap. He could feel Potter’s eyes flickering away from the road and across the cab of the car. 

> **_Date_ ** _: 03/20/2002_
> 
> **_Location_ ** _: Laurel Fork, VA_
> 
> **_Lead Investigator_ ** _: ███ ███████_
> 
> _Muggle family reported in LF to be cursed with complex DM. Family found in farm house 3 minutes outside of LF. Investigators ███████ and █████ found subject ██████ (Muggle, female, 34) to be suffering from curse-induced paranoia. Subject ██████ (Muggle, male, 37) found deceased at the scene. Deceased subject found with larynx removed in kitchen. Subject ███ (Muggle, male, 13) locked inside downstairs bathroom. ███ seemed alarmed but not under influence of curse. Subject ████████ (Muggle, female, 19) found with quarts of blood on hands and clothes in upstairs left hand bedroom. Blood was not her own. ████████ found to be under same curse induced paranoia as ███████. Curse-breaker █████ attempted one (1) anti-curse on subject ██████. Attempt only exacerbated paranoia. Auror ███ extracted subject ███ out of the home, and subject was taken to Augustine’s Hospital of Magical Maladies for memory modification._
> 
> _Subject ████████ became hostile after Curse-breaker █████ attempted counter-curse. Auror ███ cast Stupify to stop attempt at physical attack with a kitchen knife. Knife was wet with same blood, suspect to be from deceased subject with removed larynx. Subject ████████ was removed and taken to Augustine’s Hospital of Magical Maladies. Final subject ██████ successfully counter-cursed by Curse-breaker █████ after two (2) attempts. Subject was moved to Augustine’s for memory modification. Crew called in to extract deceased subject._

“This might be easier to parse if Americans allowed any pertinent information through,” Draco said, looking up from the field notes. “Who are we supposed to talk to that was actually there if there’s not a single name in this report?” He half wished that they would have blocked out the unnerving imagery for a Muggle with a removed larynx.

“Gruesome, these curses, aren’t they?” Draco said, more to himself than Potter. The sun was inching through the sky, getting fatter and heavier, and it came hot through the window. Potter had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and the sun fell through the window across them, putting them in danger of making them browner than the rest of his skin.

“Yes,” Potter answered, his voice strange and hard.

Annoyed, Draco tried his best to ignore the sudden mood swing. _Fine_ , it was _fine_ that Potter still held onto grudges from the war. The fact that Draco couldn’t figure out what he was doing or saying that caused Potter to go from polite to cold didn’t matter either. They were stuck together, and they would have to just get their job done as quickly as Muggle transportation allowed so that they could go home and resume their previous lives of never running into each other. He folded open the map again, following the little red line from Laurel Fork to the next town: Roanoke. 

He was just flipping through the field notes to find Roanoke when Potter made a frustrated little noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t understand,” Potter said, finally. 

_God_. Draco paused, lifting his gaze. This wasn’t fair. He was trapped in a metal machine that’s only purpose seemed to be to make his stomach flip over itself. He had no escape from whatever was about to come pouring out of Potter’s mouth. 

“What don’t you understand?” Draco asked, irritated that he had to play along with whatever game Potter had devised in his head to torture him for the remaining hour of this drive.

“You,” Potter said.

Oh for the love of Merlin.

“I’m not interested in making myself palatable,” Draco said, sharply. “I don’t think it much matters what you do and don’t understand about me.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, “The last time I saw you, I think you would have rather cursed yourself than get on a Muggle plane. Or in a Muggle car. Or sign up to go investigating entirely Muggle communities.”

“Well, I didn’t _sign up_ ,” Draco said, teeth gritted. “And this is my _job_. Which, I might add, I’m incredibly skilled and talented at. Do you think Ellingsworth just sent me along for a laugh?” (She might have done, but Draco wasn’t going to let Potter know that.) “The last time you saw me, mind, was when we were seventeen. Did you imagine I might still be? Or why don’t we be _honest_ : you didn’t think of me at all, and I didn’t think of you, and now we’re stuck in this _bloody_ Muggle car together for Merlin only knows how long. So, why don’t you continue not thinking about me, and I’ll continue not thinking about you, and in three months, or _whatever_ , we can go back to Britain and keep not thinking about each other for the rest of our lives.”

Draco’s voice had raised past the appropriate level for such a small space, but once he’d finished speaking he felt a little mortified. He stared firmly down at the field notes in his lap, trying very hard to manually control the blood in his veins so that it didn’t all go rushing up to his face. For a quiet moment, it seemed as if Potter was about to let it drop.

If only Draco were to be so lucky.

“You really think you got the short end of the stick after the war, don’t you?”

_No,_ Draco thought, irritated. He wasn’t going to dignify that with a response, so he just kept staring at the suddenly illegible words of Roanoke’s field notes. He couldn’t focus, what with the blood rushing so hard in his ears.

“Poor Malfoy,” Potter said, in a far more snide voice that Draco had thought him capable of. “You were just a kid, is that it? Is that the excuse you’re going to go with? You were seventeen, and so you just didn’t know that the things you were doing were reprehensible?”

“I had my day in court, Potter,” Draco said, voice stiff. “And if I recall, you were not called to testify against me.”

“I was, actually.”

Draco’s head snapped up, and he could feel his expression fumble messily through several emotions before he shuttered it closed. “You didn’t come,” Draco pointed out. He couldn’t decided if he felt angry or relieved. Did Potter not show up because he believed Draco innocent, or because he couldn’t be bothered to care what happened to him either way? 

“No,” Potter agreed, his brows drawn tight over his eyes. His nose scrunched, putting his glasses a little off center. “I didn’t think I had to. I wanted to trust you’d get a fitting punishment for your part in the war.”

Draco’s fitting punishment had been a slap on the wrist, and confiscation of his wand for eight months. In comparison to some of the other Slytherins caught up in the war their parents had begun, it was practically a vacation. In comparison to his own parents, it had been nothing at all. Father was gone. He hadn’t repented, in the end. To the very last, he had dug in his heels and even when it was over, even when he could have lied, he held his chin proudly (Proud of what, Draco often had to wonder?) and accepted the Kiss with misplaced dignity only the Malfoys were capable of.

And mother… they didn’t speak. For her part, at the very end… Draco tried not to think too hard on what his mother had done for Potter, because if he did they would have to talk about it. Draco often wondered if Potter had gone to her trial and told them what she had done for him at that very last moment in the Forest. Did he speak at her trial or did he trust that she, too, would get a fitting punishment? The year-long confinement to the Manor without her wand had been fitting to Draco, who had to sit and watch his mother, young and beautiful, almost wither away without father.

“I don’t suppose you were pleased with my sentencing then,” Draco drawled.

Potter made a noise, kind of like choking on spit. “No,” he agreed. “I think they went easy on you because you were sixteen when you… When it all happened. And then…”

“And then I had him living in my home,” Draco said, his voice sounding dull even to his own ears. “Every wretched day after, in every single corner of my childhood home. The Wizengamot felt that was enough to prove that I _acted under duress, coercion or threat of death_.”

“Suppose it doesn’t matter if that’s true or not,does it?”

It felt quite like cold ice being thrown down his spine. He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. And what _could_ he say, really, in the long run? He wasn’t about to tell Potter that he was a changed man or whatever. Not because it wasn’t true, to some extent, but because he was certain that it wouldn’t matter. Especially since Draco couldn’t even pinpoint what about him had changed, not really.

His mind still defaulted to his Pureblood upbringing. There was no point in pretending it didn’t.

“No,” Draco agreed. “It doesn’t. So, if you wouldn’t mind…” He lifted the field notes in his lap, giving them a little wave to show that he was otherwise preoccupied. Potter’s eyes darted away from the road for just a moment, before returning straight ahead.

“Which one are you reading?” Potter asked, seeming to only begrudgingly be allowing the topic of Draco’s war crimes to drop.

“Roanoke,” Draco answered, trying to stretch his legs out underneath the dash. There wasn’t much room for his limbs. “So far there seems to be a theme of _removal_. The bottom left rib, in Hurricane. The larynx in Laurel Fork. And…” Draco paused, eyes scanning over the three short paragraphs provided by the Roanoke investigative team. “Ah. Eyeballs, in Roanoke.”

Potter’s face scrunched up unpleasantly. “I noticed that,” he said. “I read through them last night.”

Last night felt like _two_ nights ago to Draco, now. But he supposed that was the dregs of Ministry work. He hoped after they looked about the crime scene in Laurel Fork that they could immediately find some place to rest. He wouldn’t say no to being unconscious for the next twelve hours. “Before or after you realized you’d stormed out of the amphitheatre with my copies and had to send them to my flat by owl?”

“After,” Potter deadpanned.

“Gracious of you.” Draco traced the red line of the map with his finger, intending to follow from Roanoke to the next town, but just as he was, the map made a pleasant ringing noise.

‘ _Farmhouse three minutes outside Laurel Fork,_ ’ the map singsonged. ‘ _Arriving in ten minutes._ ’

Draco wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to see what was left inside the farmhouse three minutes outside of Laurel Fork. The next ten minutes went by in silence, Potter carefully following the maps pleasant directions through the empty roads. When houses began appearing, they were run down and small, with cars few and far between parked at the ends of dirt drives. When they pulled up to the farmhouse in question, the map pinged happily, then went silent. Potter drove the car all the way up the dirt road, until it was parked unevenly just in front of the porch steps.

When the engine cut, the air was still and silent. Not even the late afternoon bugs felt welcome here. Draco opened the door and slid out of the car, his feet somewhat shaky underneath him. He could hear Potter on the other side, following his lead. There were magical wards around the house, most likely set up by the Bureau’s Curse-breakers in order to keep Muggles from wandering inside and destroying any evidence before they could come back and go over it. Draco made to lift his wand and remove the wards, but Potter had done so before he could even reach inside his trouser pocket.

Show off.

Foolhardy as ever, Potter was the first to climb the steps of the porch. When Draco followed, he felt an unpleasant sensation crawl up and down his spine. Whatever curse had been cast here had done more than curse the residents. It felt as if it had taken root in the very floorboards, magic that nipped at his heels as he followed Potter from the creaking porch and through the front doors. Inside, the foyer held the same unpleasant energies. Draco couldn’t tell if he was especially attuned to curses from his line of work, or if Potter had an exceptional poker face.

Draco wanted to ask if he could feel it, but for the most part, Potter seemed unfazed by the house. It was making Draco dizzier than he already was from the flight and lack of sleep, and the regrettable feeling as if he had traveled backward in time. He sidled past Potter in the foyer, following the creaking hall further back into the rest of the house. The floor plan opened up into a small sitting room, opposite of which was a cramped doorway into the kitchen.

Draco turned the corner and regretted it almost immediately. His expression crumbled, and he looked away from the dried blood on the linoleum. “Looks like the Bureau didn’t bother to clean up in here,” Draco said over his shoulder. Potter had gone the opposite way off the hall, into the sitting room instead. At Draco’s words, Potter scoffed.

“Somehow, I’m not surprised,” he said. Draco stepped aside as much as he could in the doorway to the kitchen as Potter came up beside him, looking inside. “At least they got rid of the body.”

“Mm, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Draco drawled. Potter didn’t laugh.

Stepping out of the door frame, slithering as close to the wall as he could so that he didn’t brush by Potter too closely, Draco backtracked down the hall to the foyer. The stairs lead straight up to a loft, and then another hall way. _Upstairs left-hand bedroom. Quarts of blood on her hands and clothes_. Draco followed the stairs up. They were noisy under his feet, but the sound seemed to become swallowed by the residual magic that lingered from the curses.

At the top of the stairs, a railing looked down over the foyer, and a hallway lead back into the house. Draco could hear Potter’s footsteps below, heavy and plodding and almost reassuring. Draco drew his wand from his pocket, holding it loosely at his side as he followed the hall. He could see already there was only one bedroom on the left-hand side, at the very end of the corridor. The other two rooms on the right-hand side stood open, but untouched. They looked as if the Muggle family that had lived in this house had simply stepped out for the afternoon.

The left-hand bedroom door was closed. That didn’t bode well for the uncomfortable feeling in Draco’s stomach. He opened the door with a flick of his wand, rather than taking a chance on touching it with his skin. It swung open with a slow creak, the sound feeling to Draco as if it were being swallowed up by the left-over crackle of magic, just like the steps. Inside the room, blood was smeared in patches on the floor, the bed, the walls. Draco tried to imagine what had been going through the Muggle girl’s mind when she had been up here-- perhaps after finding her father in the kitchen, or perhaps after removing the larynx herself? His mind shuttered uncomfortably through several images before he forced himself to focus on the room itself. Other than the blood, it was just a girl’s room, though perhaps a touch rustic. A dress hung over the back of the vanity chair, as if she had been readying herself for the day before…

Draco turned anti-clockwise in the center of the room and found himself face to face with a mirror, hung up on what he supposed was a closet door. He looked _dreadful_ . Wisps of white-blond hair were falling unattractively from the plaits of his braid, and his face looked paler than usual. He took a moment to stare, displeased, at the deepening bruises underneath his eyes. Looking at himself made him _feel_ just about as dead on his feet as he looked.

Scowling, Draco stepped closer and nudged the closet door open with the toe of his boot, so as to hide the mirror between the back of the door and the wall beside it. It took him a solid moment before realizing what his eyes were seeing on the inside of the closet door, dripping fresh rather than dry and turning copper from age. Shock, that’s what it was, that feeling that turned the blood in Draco’s veins to ice. Shock, and maybe fear. For the longest time, Draco had come to enjoy a life without fear, but his body remembered it well.

His blood pumped noisily in his ears, causing a steady, thrumming twitch just below his jaw. When he tried to call for Potter to come up here, the only thing that exited his throat was a hoarse little whistle. When he tried again, his name came out proper and loud. Draco couldn’t tell if it was as calm and collected as he hoped, but by the thunder of feet on the stairs, he could surmise that no, it wasn’t.

“What?”

Potter stood for just a moment in the doorway, stupidly asking _what_ , before he stepped into the room, turning to face the open closet door. Draco found himself watching him, hoping for a reaction as strong as his own, or perhaps just visible. It felt like something cold had found its way underneath Draco’s rib cage.

“That’s…” Potter’s expression grew taut. His eyes flickered wildly, from top to bottom of the inside of the closet door.

“Yes,” Draco said.

He looked back, and the sight of the freshly blood-drawn Dark Mark made the one on his own wrist, covered still by the drawn sleeves of his shirt (and his own shame) throb in sympathy.

  
  



	2. Lilith's Junction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you Liddy and Julia for making this fic a reality and always being there with encouragement when I need it most!

I.

Potter called Yeltz on the Muggle phone while Draco put heavier wards over the farmhouse. Whatever they had been before, it was just enough to keep Muggles from wandering in and disturbing the inside. Nothing strong enough to keep someone else out. The sight of the Dark Mark burned the back of Draco’s eyes, and each time it came, unbidden, back across his mind, he felt a jolt sink all the way down into his gut.

Potter’s voice rose and fell, and Draco only caught snippets of what he was saying as he moved around the back of the property, wand raised.  _ “Fresh blood… someone had drawn… Yes… Couldn’t have been more than…” _

All in all, Draco felt… reassured, perhaps, by the way he felt the need to keep bile from climbing up his throat. Certainly, if there was something deep inside of him, a scar of some sort, that held his father’s evil in him, his reaction to seeing the Dark Mark again would have been mundane. He wouldn’t be forcing himself to breathe, or to remind his heart to beat, or his feet to move. But then again, he knew that his father felt terror in those last few months, with Him in their home, sucking the life from it. Perhaps his father had always felt terror. Hatred and terror, and when they collided, it caused something truly horrific.

Draco had let terror do terrible things to him. He had let himself do terrible things in the name of terror. He wouldn’t again. He had to tell himself that.  _ Potter _ hadn’t turned terror into darkness.

“Well?” Draco asked as he came back around the front of the farmhouse. His wand hand tingled. He wasn’t used to heavy magic on so little sleep. Potter had hung up the phone, and was leaning against the front of the car, his own wand held loose in his grip.

“Yeltz wants us to get some rest,” Potter answered. “He’s sending out his own Aurors.”

“What’s he gone and done that for?” Draco asked. “You’re an Auror. We’re already here.”

“We’ve got other work to do,” Potter said. More like snapped. His voice was all sharp edges and Draco didn’t have the energy for it. “Besides,” he went on. “You’re dead on your feet. Get in the car.”

In all his life, Draco had never expected to feel such great relief as he did upon hearing the words ‘get in the car’. He very much did get in the car, climbing back into the passenger seat. The sun was setting quickly now, already over the edge of the horizon. It left the sky a smattering of purples and blues, the pink left behind by the sun already disappearing behind the treeline. He felt boneless the minute he closed the door behind him. When Potter got in, he slammed the door harder than Draco felt was strictly necessary.

“I’m sick of this,” Potter said in a low voice. He twist the keys again and the car roared back to life. The feeling of the engine shaking the whole metal frame was somewhat familiar to Draco now. He leaned forward, spreading open the map on the dash. A new red dot had appeared, just off the main highway they had come in on. When Draco tapped it with his wand, a little building miniature showed a Muggle inn. As Potter swung the car around, the map cheerily began to direct him to the new stop.

“This was supposed to be over,” Potter went on. Draco tried to arrange his face into the appropriate reaction. He couldn’t. He  _ was _ dead on his feet, and he couldn’t be bothered to cater to Potter’s tantrum. He didn’t know anything, not a single thing. He wasn’t the one with the mark on his arm, just as dark as the day he had it put there-- stupid, sixteen, fresh with terror.

“It is over,” Draco said. He had to believe it, or else his terror might do something regrettable.

The car lurched as Potter pulled it back out onto the main road. The dizziness returned, and Draco struggled not to let his stomach get the better of him.

“Did you feel that, inside the house?” Draco asked, scrubbing one hand over his face. “Like the curse was still there. In the wood.”

“No,” Potter said. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw his shoulders stiffen, his face glancing minutely in Draco’s direction. “What do you mean? You did?”

Draco made a vague motion with one hand. “It was strong, dark magic. I’d recognize it anywhere. It felt like the curse was embedded in the very house. I imagine if another Muggle had wandered in there, they would have come under the same… compulsions.” Whatever those might have been. Whatever had driven the Muggle family to attack one another and remove body parts.

Potter was silent. Draco could only imagine the spinning whirl of his thoughts. Perhaps that Draco had felt the residual magic because of some inherent darkness in him, waiting for the opportunity to burst out again. Draco didn’t know how to communicate that no, probably not. There was no way to share with Potter his own inner life, and so why bother? He was going to think what he wanted.

Thankfully, the rest of the drive was silent but for the murmur of the car, and the map’s helpful directions. When they pulled up to the Muggle inn, it looked like apartments, with garish orange and teal doors. “Stay here,” Potter instructed, before he got out of the car to walk up to the front office. Draco had no issue staying right there, letting his body imagine how good it was going to feel to finally lay down on a bed.

When Potter returned, had had two keys, and he moved the car down the row of doors, parking in front of one at the far side of the building. They retrieved their luggage from the boot of the car, and went inside. The room was small, with tables on either side of the two beds, a sink and mirror outside of the bathroom, and a dresser with one of those box and screens on top, like in the airport. The beds, though. Draco threw his luggage down at the end of the bed closest to the door, and tried to have some dignity as he pulled his boots off and fell face-first into the sheets. They smelled old and musky, like they’d been cleaned one too many times after one too many uses. He didn’t care. It was a bed and he was horizontal and that was all Draco could ask of the universe in that moment.

He was out before he could lift a hand off the bed to undo his braid.

When his eyes opened next, it was dark in the room.

Draco felt a bit like garbage. His muscles ached, and there was a crick in his neck from where he’d fallen asleep right where he’d dropped on the bed. From the windows, there was a faint, orange glow from a light out in the parking lot. It fell over Draco’s bed, illuminating, just barely, the other side of the room. Potter’s bed was unmade, but empty. Draco’s eyes felt heavy still, and it was tempting to just close them again and keep on like that until morning. But, no. He listened carefully for sounds from the bathroom, but when he sat up he could see that the door was open and the light off.

Scrubbing one hand across his face, Draco forced himself to sit up. His upper thigh ached from where he had lain across his wand, still in his pocket, for the last however many hours. The little box on the bedside table glowed red with the time: 2:06 A.M.

Unpocketing his wand, Draco stood from the bed, feeling loose-limbed and still exhausted. He went for the door first, pulling it open and peering out into the parking lot. He didn’t like the idea of having to go and find where Potter had wandered off to, but thankfully he didn’t. Potter was sat on a low wall separating the building from an empty field. He didn’t seem to be  _ doing _ anything- just sitting, looking out of the darkened grass and shrubbery. Not wanting to startle him, Draco cleared his throat to announce himself.

“You’re up?” Potter looked over his shoulder, then swung himself around. The tall lanterns dotting the parking lot didn’t reach the wall, and Potter was mostly a shadow, a darkened shape. “Thought you would be out until at least morning.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Draco said. His voice croaked with each word, and he tried not to focus on how mortifying that was. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just needed some air,” Potter said, sliding off the wall and back to his feet. He crossed the short distance between them, and Draco stepped back into the room and out of the doorway to allow Potter to pass. He closed the heavy door and twisted the lock, feeling a tad better. Still, he lifted his wand and cast a ward around the door all the same. Just in case.

Turning, Draco rummaged through his luggage at the end of the bed, grabbing out some clothes from the bottom that were more suitable to sleep in. His body still felt exhausted, but he was vibrantly aware of how gross he felt after being on the plane, and in the car, and in the heat of the farmhouse all day. A cleaning charm could only go so far, and Draco felt in great need of a long, hot shower. Potter had dropped to sit at the desk between the beds, turning on a lamp to illuminate the room in a soft, orange glow.

He was spreading the field notes out over the desk. Draco had had enough of them for one day and went straight for the bathroom. He found a damp towel already hung up on the metal bar beside the door, but there was a dry one on the rack, still. The texture was old and worn, rough against his fingers when he touched it.

The shower wasn’t much better. The water was tepid more than it was hot, and Draco tried not to let his irritation coil more knots into his muscles. He stayed under the spray longer than necessary, hoping that the water would heat up. When it didn’t, Draco resigned himself to months of showers just like this. Still, it did feel good to scrub the sweat off his skin. When he got out of the shower, Draco opted for a drying charm rather than the scratchy towel.

Clean, dressed and marginally less exhausted, Draco returned to the main room. Potter was still sitting at the desk, with page of the field notes sprawled out over the top. Draco dropped onto his bed, leaning up against the headboard. “What are you looking for?” Draco asked. The desk was between their beds, which meant that Potter was sitting uncomfortably close.

“Just… anything,” Potter said after a brief pause. He looked like he might laugh, though Draco knew it would be more than mirthless. “So far the only connection is that they’re terrorizing Muggles and cursing them into removing their own body parts.”

“Who knows what the Bureau missed,” Draco pointed out. “Some of those field notes are pathetic.”

Potter grimaced. “Was there a curse on that … mark? To make it look fresh?”

Draco cleared his throat, looking away. “Not that I could tell,” he said softly. “It was most likely done by hand. Probably not a quarter of an hour before we showed up.”

“Don’t like that,” Potter muttered, leaning back away from the field notes and tilting his head back on his neck. He looked exhausted.

Draco pulled his hair around one shoulder and began untangling it absently with his fingers. The thin, delicate strands hadn’t thanked him for keeping his hair knotted up in a braid and then sleeping on it. Silence stretched between them for a while. For the first time, it wasn’t uncomfortable or following an uncomfortable interrogation about Draco’s past. As he worked the knots from the ends of his hair, Draco found that the steady inhale-exhale of another person in the room was comforting. Even if it was Potter.

“Malfoy…” Potter began.

So much for that.

“Yes,” he replied, choosing to look down at the ends of his hair rather than at Potter.

“What are you doing here, really?” Potter asked. “Other than money… how on earth did you get to be a Curse-breaker for the Ministry?”

“Well,” Draco drawled. “I sat for my N.E.W.Ts like everyone else with lofty aspirations of life after war. I got exceptional scores and I paid a lot of galleons to get an interview. Ellingsworth was under a lot of pressure not to hire a reformed Death Eater.” He didn’t think of himself that way, but it didn’t seem to matter. He had walked the walk, so to speak. He had done things he wished he hadn’t.

“ _ Why _ was working as a Curse-breaker part of your lofty aspirations?” Potter pressed, sounding annoyed. Good. If Draco was going to have to have this conversation, he was going to make Potter play word games to get it out of him.

The answer, though, felt complicated. Draco liked to tell himself that he needed something to do and it sounded fun (it had), but that wasn’t what Potter was looking for. Something about being thousands of miles from home, tucked away together in this tiny room, made Draco feel more generous with his answers.

“Would you believe me if I told you the truth?” Draco asked, finally looking up from the ends of his hair. Potter was looking at him then, his own expression seeming complicated. Perhaps like he was trying very hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

After a beat, Potter replied, “Yeah. I think I will, just this once.”

Draco snorted, inelegant and unattractive.

“Atonement,” he said. “See, now I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Wipe that look off your face, Potter.” When he had, Draco continued. “Don’t take offense when I say that you have no earthly idea how pureblood society operates. It’s true, you don’t. I can sit here all night and try to explain the culture of fear that was bred into me, but I imagine you’re not feeling too soft for eleven-year-old Malfoy. When everything was getting… worse, because it was already bad, wasn’t it?”

Potter didn’t answer that, to which Draco was grateful. He just listened, even when Draco paused to gather his thoughts, twisting the ends of his hair ruthlessly around his fingers.

“I’m not saying it was  _ worse _ ,” Draco said. “Being… on that side. It wasn’t. But there was fear. I’d accepted at sixteen that I was going to die. I thought, well, alright. I’ve made my bed. I’ve got to lie in it now. That was… The mark was on my arm, and I was weak, and pathetic, and afraid. Of course I was going to die.”

Potter’s face didn’t give anything away, and Draco refused to let himself do much more than stare blankly back at him while he spoke. “It wasn’t my war. I knew that by the time it was too late. My father had chosen my side for me. You’ll say I could have refused, but… Well. I knew I was going to die, but you’ll have to forgive my sixteen year old self for being too cowardly.”

He looked away, then, feeling unnerved by the way Potter’s eyes flickered over his face. He didn’t want to talk about this, but he supposed that he did owe it to Potter to answer for his part in the war. His sentence  _ had _ been pathetic, in comparison.

“So, that's it,” he said, firmly. “Other than I like what I do, that’s why I’m here. And for what it’s worth, if it’s worth anything, I know now that what was taught to me was wrong. Or, rather… I know that I was wrong. What I said, what I thought, what I did… It was cruel, at best. I’d offer an apology if I didn’t think it would be an insult after everything.”

“Oh, go on,” Potter said. “Give it a shot.”

Draco knew he was making a face that wasn’t entirely pleasant. He didn’t want to be like  _ this  _ with Potter: open, vulnerable. Swallowing thickly, Draco forced himself to speak. “I’m sorry.”

The air in the room felt thick. Potter stared at him with a face that still seemed unreadable to Draco. He waited for him to say something, anything. Perhaps for him to throw it back in Draco’s face. He would have deserved it, and then at least Draco would know where they stood with one another. Instead, Potter let him squirm, almost literally.

“Okay,” Potter said, at last.

The single word made Draco’s stomach turn to liquid. His eyes narrowed, lips pressing into a thin, bloodless line. “Okay?” He repeated.

Potter shrugged one shoulder, his expression opening up. He didn’t look pleased, per se, but his face didn’t seem as contemptuous as it had before. “I mean, no. It’s not okay,” he said. “But you’re here, so that has to count for something.”

Draco hadn’t been looking for Potter’s validation, but once he had it, he felt a knot in his stomach unwind. If only because that meant that he wouldn’t have to have any more of these conversations. “It does,” Draco said, slowly. “Count for something.”

“Then truce?” Potter held out his hand. “At least until this is over. And then we can… you know, like you said. Go back to not thinking about each other.”

That sounded absolutely divine, so Draco reached out his hand and clasped Potter’s tight. He gave it a firm shake. “Truce,” he agreed.

 

II.

Neither of them were adjusting well to the time change.

Draco slept in fits and starts the rest of the night, and each time he awoke it was a gamble whether or not Potter would be sleeping or sitting up in his bed. Draco finally gave up on sleep around 6:30 in the morning, and dressed for the day. They discussed, in muzzy, tired voices, whether or not they ought to go back to the farmhouse, or head to Roanoke. Potter ended up calling Yeltz, and Draco listened to one side of a conversation, the tinny squeak of Yeltz’ drawl just barely audible on the other end.

When Potter hung up, he shoved the Muggle phone into his trouser pocket, then dug the other one out of his backpack. He tossed it to Draco, who caught it warily. “Here,” Potter said. “I charmed them to stay on. No use fussing with Muggle battery life.”

“Breaking the law, are we?” Draco asked, turning the pink Muggle phone over in his hand. The front screen slid up when he turned it on it’s side to reveal a row of buttons with letters on them. He slid it shut again, and pocketed it. He didn’t plan on using the thing if he could help it. Let Potter talk to Yeltz. It seemed the safest route.

“Eh,” Potter said, and then flashed a grin. The motion was so quiet and boyish that Draco wondered if he had seen it at all, considering it was gone the next moment when Potter turned to close up his luggage. “Yeltz said to head to Roanoke,” Potter went on. “He thinks his Aurors have the farmhouse handled.”

“Don’t know about that,” Draco muttered. Potter snorted.

They packed up the car, and in the light of the new day, Draco felt a touch more optimistic. As Potter went to check out, Draco poured over the map again, spreading it out over the dash. When he tapped the map with his wand, it helpfully supplied that Roanoke was another two hours north. Getting such an early start made Draco confident that they might even be able to get to the next town on their route.

Potter returned from the front office with two steaming white cups. The smell of coffee filled the cab of the car, and Draco’s stomach began to ache. The last thing he’d eaten was on the plane yesterday, and his body was reminding him, strongly, that he was starving. Draco took the coffee with a muttered, “Thanks,” and tried not to down it in one go. It was hot, but the taste was just as dingy as the rest of this Muggle inn seemed to be. Draco wondered if this was just Muggles in general, or something specific to America.

“Breakfast?” Potter asked, and Draco thought for a moment he was asking him. Before he could answer, the map pleasantly announced they would arrive at a roadside diner in twenty minutes.

Ten minutes in, Draco came to regret his truce the previous night with Potter when he announced, “I’m going to have to teach you to drive.”

“Please do not,” Draco said around a mouthful of coffee, now gone tepid.

“I’m not driving for months on end,” Potter said, sounding annoyed but not really annoyed. Teasing? Was that it? Draco didn’t know the nuances of Potter’s voices, yet. “You’re clever, you’ll get the hang of it. Only took me a week.”

Draco exhaled so hard the air ground uncomfortably against the back of his throat. “Well, I suppose if we’re not going back into a city like Charlotte.”

The open stretches of road, surrounded by trees and hills and smattering of houses and farms seemed alright enough. It was mostly a straight shot, and the other cars on the road were far enough away that Draco didn’t feel as if they were in danger of smashing into the back of them.

The diner was just off the highway, and there were already several cars parked along the dirt parking lot when they pulled in. Draco moved his wand from his pocket to the inside of his boot so that he could cover it with the leg of his trousers, rather than having it poke out. Inside, the diner smelled strongly of grease, but also sausage and eggs and ham. Draco’s stomach felt concave with hunger, and he was perfectly content to have this American Muggle experience with no qualms.

Their waitress was young and harried, and she had that same drawling accent when she took their orders. Draco was no better at parsing apart what she said than he was Yeltz. Breakfast was a mostly quiet affair, though Draco did complain, quietly, under his breath, about the portion size of American meals (far too large). Otherwise, though, he and Potter tucked into their breakfasts and said nothing until they both felt as if they might burst. It was a tad strange. No, it wasn’t camaraderie between them, but the truce struck the night before felt solid, almost as if it were being enforced by magic itself.

“Roanoke was eyeballs, you said?” Potter asked after they’d paid and left, returning to the car. Draco’s mind felt, for the first time since they’d started this journey, clear of any buzzing anxiety and irritation. He felt clear-headed, ready to focus on the task ahead of him. The terror of seeing the Dark Mark again was even beginning to fade, time and distance becoming a balm on the experience in the farmhouse.

“Eyeballs,” Draco confirmed. He turned in his seat to fish the field notes out of Potter’s backpack again, leafing through them until he came upon Roanoke. Even if he felt out of his depth, something about a new day had put Draco in far better spirits. He wasn’t sure what they were up against, or what they were going to find in Roanoke, or even what good Ellingsworth and Yeltz thought they would be doing out here. But, with the windows half-rolled down and the cool morning air preceding the heat of the day, Draco felt prepared.

He flipped open Roanoke’s field notes.

 

> **_Date_ ** _ : 3/28/2002 _
> 
> **_Location_ ** _ : Roanoke, VA _
> 
> **_Lead Investigator_ ** _ : █████ ███ _
> 
> _ Auror ███ intercepted Muggle police call about distressed individual along hiking paths in Bottom Creek Gorge. Subject A (Muggle, male, 34) found by Aurors ███ and ██████ to be suffering from unknown dark magic. Wards put up around hiking path to prevent Muggle interaction. No witch or wizard within 3 mile radius check of the surrounding area. Subject A spoke in no known language(1). When approached, Subject A became distressed and erratic. _
> 
> _ Auror ███ attempted one (1) counter curse. Upon exposure to counter curse, Subject A proceeded to remove left eye from socket with the use of his thumbs. Auror ███ made executive decision to Stupify to prevent further damage. Subject A relocated to Augustine’s for treatment of injury and sedation. _
> 
> _ (1) UPDATE: Auror ███ confirmed Subject A attempting to speak Parseltongue.   _

“Muggles can’t speak Parseltongue,” Draco said, frowning.

“Not that I know of,” Potter agreed. “Part of the curse, I figure.”

“Takes on a new context after we found the… that… in the farmhouse,” Draco said. “All of this does. Ellingsworth said it was happening all over North America. We’ve only got…” Draco thumbed through the field notes. “Twenty cases. There were what… eight of us at that meeting? This is practically an epidemic. How is the Bureau just now getting someone else to look into this?”

“The Ministry wouldn’t believe that Voldemort was back until he was practically knocking down their doorstep,” Potter pointed out. Hearing him say his name, so casually, as if it was  _ nothing _ had Draco’s head reeling. He was ashamed to have flinched, just a little, as the sound of You-Know-Who’s name inspired a wave of nausea. If Potter noticed, he didn’t say anything. Draco forced himself to take a moment before he replied so that his voice might not give away just how much weaker he was than Potter.

“You don’t suppose some of them… his supporters, I mean. You don’t suppose they fled to North America?” The scene in the farmhouse no longer felt distant. In fact, the sight of the Dark Mark rose, unbidden, in the back of Draco’s mind. His sleeves felt unbearably rough against his wrist now, where his own Mark refused removal. And oh, he had tried his best. He’d tried everything short of lobbing off his arm at the elbow entirely.

“Or some American dark wizards are feeling particularly bold, so long after the war,” Potter said, shrugging one shoulder. He wore short sleeves, Draco noticed, able to show off the brown insides of his wrists with no fear. “They’re teaching it in schools now, you know: The Second Wizarding War.”

“Perfect,” Draco snapped. “Just what we need. Fodder for knock-off Death Eaters to fuel their sick, senseless Muggle-hunting.”

The look of surprise on Potter’s face felt insulting. “Did I strike you as insincere last night, Potter, or is there some other reason for that look on your face?”

Potter held up one hand off the steering wheel, his expression turning sheepish. “No, you’re right. Sorry. It’s novel to hear you talk like this, that’s all.”

Draco frowned, but let most of his irritation go. “North America is big, too,” Draco went on, putting just enough of an edge to his voice so that Potter knew he was being punished. “Who knows how widespread this is.”

“I’m thinking the Bureau is going to need more than sixteen wizards on loan from Britain,” Potter agreed, scrubbing one hand over his face. Virginia spread out around them, on either side of the car, as the sun climbed higher in the sky. After that, Draco felt… less sure of himself.

“I read somewhere that the Wizard to Muggle ratio in North America is abysmal. There’s just too many for the Bureau to keep an eye on, especially if they’ve got rogue dark wizards running rampant in Muggle communities,” Potter said.

Draco’s frown deepened, and he tucked the Roanoke field notes away again. He couldn’t quite imagine what they were going to find on some hiking trail, and he almost wanted to skip the whole lot and head straight for the next town. Still, someone had been in the farmhouse. Perhaps someone had returned to the scene in Roanoke, too, to leave a Dark Mark. The thought was unsettling, but at least now he wouldn’t be startled by it.

They fell into a somewhat companionable silence after that. From the west, the sky began to darken, encroaching on the clear blue sky on either side of them. Outside the half-rolled down windows, Draco could feel the oppressive humidity of an oncoming storm. The scent of the air even changed, becoming damp and sharp. When the map cherrily announced their arrival to Roanoke would be another twenty minutes, Draco caught sight of sheets of rain, a few miles off, not yet having reached them.

“Please don’t tell me we’re about to go marching about a hiking trail in the middle of a storm?” Draco asked, uncomfortable. He rolled his window up just as the first sprinkles of rain from the approaching clouds hit the windshield. Potter flipped a lever on the side of the steering wheel, and two rubber wipers started up across the front window. Draco had to admit, despite the potentially dangerous ways of travelling, the Muggles certainly had thought of some astounding conveniences.

“I’d rather not,” Potter agreed, frowning as the clouds rolled overhead and brought with them heavier lashes of rain. The sheets fell heavily over the windshield, pattering loudly on the top of the car, causing an almost pleasant tingle up the back of Draco’s neck. “We wouldn’t be able to see anything, anyway. I suppose we could find some place to stop off…”

As he said that, the map announced,  _ ‘Rerouting! _ ’ in it’s happy little voice. Draco pulled a face, leaning forward to look down at the map. The red lines hadn’t changed, but instead of the dot being just off of Roanoke’s center where the hiking trail was, it had moved to settle more firmly inside the city boundaries. ‘ _ Rerouting! Lilith’s Junction, Wizarding Ward, Roanoke, Virginia. Arriving in twenty-five minutes!’ _

“Out of the Floo Network, he said!” Draco exclaimed, scowling down at the map. “Drive a Muggle car, he said!”

Potter’s shoulders were shaking, and it took Draco a minute to realize that he was biting back laughter. Draco, unused to being laughed at in a cordial manner, felt his face going red.

“Well, it  _ is _ ,” Potter said after a moment, his voice all tight from restrained mirth. “I’m sure there’s no Floo onto the hiking trails. And we weren’t even supposed to be going to… what is it? Lilith’s Junction? If it hadn’t started raining, I bet the map would have taken us right passed it.”

“Well, that’s where we’re staying tonight,” Draco said firmly. “And until this storm passes. We’ll head out to the hiking trails in the morning if we have to.”

“What, are the Muggle hotels not to your liking?” Potter said. The side of his face that Draco could see was split into a grin. It stayed this time, unlike the one earlier that morning that had disappeared almost as soon as it had come. Perhaps it was just the knowledge that the more Potter was pleased with him, the less further interrogation about his past he would have to endure-- but whatever the reason, the smile made Draco’s stomach twist quite pleasantly.

“They’ll do in a pinch,” Draco said, turning his nose up for the effect of it all. It worked, and Potter laughed. “But if we have the option, I’d be pleased to be among our own kind.”

“Mm,” Potter said. “You were doing so well, too.”

Draco rolled his eyes so hard his head lolled back against the seat. “Spare me,” he begged.

“Just the once,” Potter agreed, pleasantly.

 

III.

Entering into Lilith’s Junction was a delight. The storm had rolled over the city of Roanoke and the surrounding areas with the force of a gale, wind and rain whipping unpleasantly between the buildings and the trees. Tucked into an alleyway, Draco helped Potter disillusion the car before they entered Roanoke’s wizarding ward through a battered, run-down door with planks of wood nailed across the front. On the other side, Draco found himself surrounded by the familiarity of wizards and witches in proper robes, bustling through their mid-morning errands.

Above them, a charm had been cast to stop the rain from falling through the tightly packed buildings. It was a blessing, too, because Draco was soaked to the bone just from the walk between the car and Lilith’s Junction’s entrance. Roanoke’s wizarding ward was not unlike Diagon Alley, with the tightly packed shops, and apartments above, and cobblestone streets. After casting drying charms over themselves, Draco and Potter began to weave between the residents, taking more time than perhaps they strictly should.

Even though Potter seemed entirely unfazed by Muggle life, he was a wizard all the same, and Draco felt secretly pleased to see that even he looked more at ease among the culture of Lilith's Junction. The streets were much like a spiderweb, leading around and around into a main square with a statue of a witch at the center, surrounded by charmed flowers and shrubbery meant to remain in perfect bloom all year round, no matter the weather. The fountains surrounding the square changed color every few minutes.

One of the buildings facing the square was an inn called the Nest, though it seemed far too busy to have any empty rooms. The first floor had a bar, though it was much livelier than the Leaky Cauldron could ever hope to be.

“Hello,” Draco said politely to the witch behind the bar. “I was wondering if you had any rooms available?”

“Sorry, baby,” the witch said, affected by the same twang in her voice as everyone else he’d met so far. There was an American transplant in Wizarding Resources at the Ministry, and her voice sounded absolutely plain. He had to assume that the accent was regional, rather than all of America. “We’re all full up.”

Potter shrugged and turned to leave, but Draco slid smoothly into the seat on the bar. “Yes,” he said with a little flash of a smile. “I’m sure, of course. You see, my friend and I here- Harry Potter, I’m sure you know him-”

“ _ Malfoy _ .”

Potter didn’t sound pleased, but if he wasn’t going to invoke his own name, Draco was certainly going to do it for him.

And it worked. The bar witch’s face lit up, her eyes flickering right to Potter’s forehead, then to the rest of his face. Her cheeks went pink, and her hands fluttered nervously in front of her. “Oh, well, you should have just said,” the witch twanged. “We’ve got one room, but… Well, it’s just that there’s only one bed. ‘Course, there’s a couch, and if you’re alright at Transfiguration I ain’t bothered if you make it two.”

Draco, who was  _ not _ alright at Transfiguration, silently accepted he was about to sleep curled up on a cramped couch for the next night or two while they explored the hiking trails. “That would be divine,” Draco cooed.

The witch smiled big and wide as she gathered two keys for them, handing them over the bar. Draco took them and flashed his own smile, though he wasn’t sure how charming it was. Potter was standing just over his shoulder, and when Draco turned to look at him, his face was all tangled up in… what? Irritation? Embarrassment? Draco could remember a time when his family name got him everything he ever could have wanted. If Potter wasn’t going to use his own to get them a hotel room, then what was the point?

“Oh, wipe the look off your face, Potter,” Draco said, rolling his eyes. He passed one key into his hand. “Let’s go see our room.”

The room was, as far as inns above bars went, rather lavish and big, with an ensuite and a balcony that overlooked the square just outside the bar. There  _ was _ only one bed, though Draco was surprised by the size of it. The couch in the corner looked comfortable enough, though Draco wasn’t sure that he was going to fit sleeping on it unless he curled up quite small. Potter huffed and sulked about for a moment, before opening up the doors to the balcony. The humid air wafted in, bringing with it the smells from the bar below, and a sweets shop they could spot across the square.

“This is nice,” Potter finally agreed while they stood, quiet and side by side, overlooking the square. From this height, they could see the entirety of it, and the streets that spread out from the center like spiderwebs. It was getting towards noon day now, and more and more witches and wizards were filling the streets, going about their day to day business. Draco couldn’t have anticipated being able to be with his own people in the middle of this… adventure.

Suddenly, Draco was filled with the need to be out there with the people. He knew that they should stay in the room, perhaps pore over the case notes. Instinctively, even, he knew that was what Potter would have wanted to do. But just then, Draco could not imagine anything more trapping to his very soul. He smacked his palms against the balcony. “Let’s go down, shall we?” He said. It didn’t matter if Potter agreed, to be honest. Draco was going to go down there either way.

“We shouldn’t,” Potter hedged, just as Draco predicted he would. “If we’re going to wait for the storm to die down, we should at least be doing something useful.”

“I don’t remember you being so hesitant to slack off in school.”

“Malfoy, these are real people,” Potter said, his tone disapproving. It felt uncomfortable. Draco pushed those feelings aside.

“Real people we can’t do anything for right now,” Draco amended. “Until the storm clears. Look, I can see a book shop just across the square. If you’re not coming, then I’ll go. There might be something that can help us.”

Potter’s face didn’t change from something decidedly disappointed. To avoid looking any longer, Draco turned away and swept back into the room. It only took a moment before he heard Potter following him, the balcony door clicking shut. Strangely, he didn’t feel as if he had won. He almost wished that Potter had more firmly declined. After thinking about it, he couldn’t very much imagine strolling side by side with Potter through the quaint American streets.

“Fine,” Potter agreed. He didn’t sound happy about it.

“If you’re going to be in a strop…”

“I’m not in a  _ strop _ .”

Draco decided not to push him. “Then let’s go, shall we?”

There was quite a murmur in the bar when they descended the stairs again. The young barwitch seemed to have told quite a few of the patrons about her newest guests, and Draco felt near invisible as they moved through the room towards the front doors. No one tried to stop them, but Draco could hear the murmur of twanging voices.  _ Yes, there he is _ , they said, trilling and drawling.  _ Harry Potter, all the way from England. _

And me, thought Draco snidely. His lowly sidekick. Outside, the air was thick and humid, despite the charm cast to keep the worst of the storm at bay. The sky was darkening as the clouds kept rolling in overhead. The sound of thunder crackled. Tucked inside Lilith’s Junction, out of the way of the rain, Draco felt almost cozy. It reminded him of stormy weather at Wiltshire over the summer’s of his youth when he would lay in bed and listen to the incessant pattern of the rain on the roof, and count the seconds between thunder and lightning to see whether the storm was moving closer or farther. Even more so, he wished that Potter had opted to stay behind, so that he could enjoy the feeling without that strange creeping of shame up the back of his neck.

Potter didn’t notice, however. They crossed the cobblestone street and cut through a small garden path around the statue to get to the bookshop. Potter hovered by the entrance, looking a little uncertain by the whole lot of it. The shop was small and cramped, with winding, tightly packed book shelves that climbed all the way to the ceiling. A rolling ladder moved lazily by itself, leaned up against the outer shelves along the wall. The whole place smelled like old, old pages. It reminded Draco, almost immediately, of long days spent tucked in the library at the manor in preparation for his N.E.W.Ts. An old witch with brightly red hair was sitting at the counter, either asleep or dead.

Draco wasn’t pressed to leave Potter behind, and found himself finally able to relax the hard line of his shoulders once he disappeared behind one of the shelves. The books on that aisle were less than helpful, though he was pleased to find that they looked to be arranged by subject. He crossed from one aisle to the next. Other than subject, there didn’t seem to be any other cohesive sorting system.  _ Magical creatures  _ was in the aisle right across from  _ Agricultural magicks. _

He found a section that might be useful, eventually.  _ Curses and Counters _ was sparse, but  _ History of Dark Magicks _ had a more promising selection. He combed through the titles, pulling his hair back and tilting his head to better read the spines.  _ Ancient Greece and Dark Arts _ …  _ Bettering America from Dark Wizards _ …  _ I Was A Teenage Dark Wizard _ …

Draco almost pulled that one from the shelf, but imagining the complicated look that Potter would make stopped him. Finally, something  _ did _ catch his eye, even though he hadn’t been expecting to find much. He pulled the book from its spot, surprised by how light it was compared to its size.  _ Deconstructing the Dark Arts _ . When Draco flipped it open, it opened to pages of spellbuilding- or, rather, as the title implied, unbuilding the spell. As far as Draco knew, some of the Muggles were still quarantined at St. Augustine’s, unable to be released by a countercurse. Draco knew better than anyone that magic was complicated, unpredictable, and ever changing. Maybe the answer to the main problem wasn’t in this book- but maybe the answer to someone’s problem. Specifically, the Muggles still waiting to be treated for their… removal curses.

Draco closed the book and tucked it against his hip as he stepped out from the aisle. He nearly ran right into Potter, who had come around the corner just at that moment. Draco knocked into one of the shelves in his effort not to ram Potter’s face into his collar bone, and felt the familiar flair of embarrassment that had been instilled into him every time he went somewhere and acted anything less than civilized. A few books teetered on the shelves, but didn’t fall, and Draco forgave himself for the moment.

“Find anything?” Potter asked, sounding skeptical.

“Maybe,” Draco said, handing the book over.

They stood in the small aisle, uncomfortably close, while Potter flipped through the pages. Draco wondered what kind of N.E.W.Ts Potter had to sit through to be accepted into Auror training. How much did he know about spellbuilding, or curses, or anything other than disarming someone who meant to do him harm? Not that Draco knew much- he was in the business of breaking curses, not building them. He supposed none of the other Curse-breakers were, either.

“Well?” Draco finally prompted.

“This is actually brilliant,” Potter said, looking up from the book and fixing Draco with… a look. Pleased? Was he pleased? Draco looked away, down at the pages instead.

“Of course it is,” Draco muttered.

“Yeah, but you couldn’t have known,” Potter pointed out closing the book with a thick clap of its pages. Draco took it back, tucking it under one arm.

The old witch had to be prodded awake, and she yawned the entire time Potter counted out the coins, because Draco hadn’t thought to bring his money bag. When they stepped back out onto the street, the sky above was nearly black, casting a gloomy darkness around the square. Lanterns had come on in shop doorways and windows, leaving a warm, orange glow around the town. Independently of one another, or perhaps tethered together by the smell of fresh pastries, the pair of them wandered just down the square from the bookshop to a little eatery. The windows were open and Draco couldn’t ever resist sweets.

American sweets were somewhat novel, and even Potter couldn’t turn down peeking through the shop. It was not unlike Honeydukes of their youth, packed to the brim with shelves and displays. Wooden barrels of candies lined the center of the shop, and displays of cakes and pastries that littered every available counter space. More people were milling about in here than there had been in the bookshop. Draco had to avoid stepping on a pair of young twins who were running circles around their harried mother.

They came away with small bags of varied candies, and Potter had gotten himself an assortment of pastries. Despite his sweettooth, Draco didn’t indulge all that often in candies. It seemed like something that ought to have been left behind in childhood. If Potter had these same hang ups, he certainly didn’t seem to show them. In fact, he looked pleased with his haul as they left the shop and headed the long way around back towards the Nest. There was a trinket shop that Draco almost stopped in at, thinking that it might be nice to get a bauble to bring back to Dandelion. But he didn’t want to explain his affections for the house elf to Potter, so he refrained. They both hovered outside of a Quidditch shop longer than necessary, peering in at the newest brooms. Draco almost asked him if he still flew, but held his tongue.

When they got back to the Nest, the bar below the Inn was bustling with activity. Word had gotten around the bar and the Inn that Harry Potter was among them, and all eyes were on them when they entered. Draco wondered if the shock and awe around Potter would ever die down, or if defeating the Dark Lord was something so grandiose that everyone would remember his name long after he died. For Draco’s part, he was glad to fade into obscurity, and he couldn’t help the sly smile that slid across his lips when Potter shot him an annoyed glance.

“Mr. Potter,” a young witch said, elbowing her way from one end of the bar to where they were trying to sneak back up to their room to avoid the eyes of the rest of the patrons. She didn’t look much younger or older than either of them. She had olive-y skin and big, round eyes that looked nearly black, half hidden by the dark waves of loose curls that fell just around her shoulders. Objectively, Draco could assess that she was quite pretty.

“I’m sorry,” Potter said, getting ready to beg off. Draco turned his face to hide his snicker.

“No, sorry- my name is Yasmin,” the witch said quickly. “I’m a Curse-breaker with the Bureau. We all heard you were on loan with the Ministry, and then someone was blabbing that you’d stopped here.”

Draco’s attention drew more firmly to Yasmin and he saw that so did Potter’s. Draco craned his neck and spotted a small table in the corner, though it was doubtful that they would be able to have a conversation without getting overheard. “Shall we sit?” He suggested, nodding to the table. Potter looked uncertain, but followed Draco’s lead all the same.

Yasmin was almost a full head and a half shorter than Draco, and he even towered over her when they all sat in the corner, with Potter taking the seat facing the rest of the bar.

The barwitch came around and announced that drinks were on the house. Yasmin ordered a drink, so Draco followed-- and Potter, apparently not wanting to feel let out or seem rude, did the same.

“Do you know much about… the curses?” Potter asked Yasmin after the barwitch had left them alone. He spoke in a low voice, and the chatter of the rest of the bar seemed to drown out any evesdroppers. Yasmin’s expression was taut and she nodded quickly, two sharp jerks of her small chin.

“I’m one of the Curse-breakers in the field notes they gave you. They did give you the field notes, didn’t they?” Yasmin exhaled sharply when Draco and Potter both nodded. “Lord, it ain’t like me to ask a stupid question but you’d be surprised how the Bureau runs itself to the ground.”

Immediately, Draco found that he liked Yasmin. “You investigated the hiking trail?” Draco guessed.

Yasmin nodded, her lips pressing together in a thin line. Her small hands grappled with one another on top of the table. “I’m only just out of training six months,” Yasmin admitted. “I’m used to family heirlooms and domestic calls. You know, someone’s done cursed their auntie over some family drama.”

Draco knew fairly well. A feeling in his chest went out for Yasmin.

“We’re going to look after the storm is gone,” Potter said. As if called, thunder cracked overhead, the pressure of it nearly shaking the building. “Is there anything you can tell us? You were there.”

Yasmin didn’t look much like she  _ wanted _ to talk about it, but more like she felt compelled to do so. Draco could understand the feeling, and he almost reached across the small table to pat her hand. Just before she opened her mouth, the barwitch returned with their drinks. Yasmin’s was bright red, and she drank deeply from it, hissing a little as the alcohol slid its way down.

“It was awful,” Yasmin said, after taking a big gulp of air. “I’ve never… not in my life! The Muggle, he was just raving, but not really speaking, just kind of like, hissing, you know?”

“Parseltongue,” Potter supplied. Yasmin nodded grimly.

“That was it. He had his back to us, I think, I remember that, and when I tried to get his attention he turned around. When he saw us, he just--” Yasmin took another big swallow of her drink, tipping the glass back inelegantly.

“He shoved his thumbs right into his eyes,” Yasmin finished, her voice faint. “I didn’t even-- I couldn’t… I had  _ Stupify _ half in my mouth, but it was so fast. You know? How was I supposed to know?”

“You couldn’t have,” Potter said. Draco drank deeply from his own glass so that he did not have to think too long about the warm sound of Potter’s voice. Potter, unafraid, did reach across the table and touch Yasmin’s hand, giving it a good squeeze. The alcohol slid warmly into Draco’s stomach, empty as it was (their last meal had been that buttery, greasy American breakfast).  

“When I heard you were here, I knew it was probably for Bureau clean up. I was right wasn’t it?” When Draco and Potter nodded, Yasmin smiled, a little more emboldened by the alcohol. “The storm should be clear by tomorrow morning. I could go with out to the spot. It’s a bit hard to find if you don’t know where you’re looking. Have you got any ideas… rumor has it there was something going on in Laurel Fork. Bureau has sent out a heap of Aurors.”

The feeling that had gripped Draco’s stomach when he saw the Mark flared to life as Potter told Yasmin what had happened at the farm house. Draco wished he wouldn’t, but Potter was starting to make eyes across the table at her. He drank more, until his glass was empty. He didn’t want any feeling at all.

“It just doesn’t make a lick of sense,” Yasmin said, twisting her empty glass between her fingers. The barwitch had come by and offered to refill their glasses. Potter hadn’t even touched his own, but Draco got a second drink. “There ain’t but maybe three Pureblood families left in North America, and they’re about to reach a genetic bottleneck, if you ask me.”

Draco almost spit out his drink around a laugh, which made Yasmin laugh, too. The tension around their table broke then, and Draco finished the rest of his drink with a valiant swallow. He could feel the drinks starting to turn his attention muzzy now. He wished he had gotten lunch or supper before this. He didn’t normally approve of day drinking, but the conversation and the situation seemed to have called for it. At the very least, Potter was still sober.

The talk shifted away from work, after that. Potter asked just the right kind of questions that made Yasmin open up, and he wondered if that was a skill that Potter possessed innately, or something he picked up with Auror training. Either way, it worked. Draco learned that Yasmin was a halfblood, as the rest of her family had been, halfbloods marrying into halfbloods. She wasn’t wrong when she had said that there wasn’t a lot of Pureblood families left in America. It was like that in Britain, too, but the scale was much grander, here.

Yasmin was also the oldest of six sisters, which Draco found impossible to imagine. Potter dove right into a story about the Weasleys, and all of the siblings. They bonded over that, Yasmin and Potter, in a way that Draco, an only child, could not. When the conversation turned to how Yasmin had always wanted to be a Curse-breaker, like her mother, Draco  _ could _ relate-- not fully, but it was something they shared that Potter didn’t, so Draco elbowed his way back into the conversation.

The barwitch came around a fourth time, and Draco happily ordered a third refill. Yasmin asked for some chips-- no, they called them fries, here. She ordered an entire basket to share, which was nice of her, Draco thought. His mind felt all sluggish from the alcohol, but he drank this third all the same. The time difference was getting to him again. He and Potter had been up since the earliest hours of the morning. Early evening was now upon them, and Yasmin was trying to give Potter detailed instructions on how to get to the hiking trail.

They made plans to meet early in the morning outside of Lilith's Junction. Despite the muzzy feeling in his head from the drinks (did Americans make them stronger here?), Draco felt more than ready to retreat up to the room with the book he found and start pouring over the theory of unmaking curses. They took their time saying goodbye to Yasmin, though. Potter seemed to take to her swimmingly, and Draco couldn’t tell if he was more keen to get on with strangers as easily as Potter, or if he was irritated that even a stranger got on better with Potter than he seemed to be able to.

The entire night left him with a combination of drunken amusement and irritation. When they finally parted ways with Yasmin and went up to the room, Draco didn’t know what to do with the excess energy. He dropped onto the couch, putting his feet on the small coffee table while he dug the book he’d bought out of the paper bag the shopkeeper had given him. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco could see Potter digging through his luggage.

“She was helpful,” Potter said absently. Draco hummed in agreement. Yasmin  _ was _ helpful. And he was more than glad that she had agreed to come along with them to the hiking trail tomorrow.

“I’ll take the couch, then,” Draco offered as he open the book on his propped knees.

“No good at transfiguration?” Potter asked, amusement in his voice. Draco frowned, looking up again.

“I remember school,” Draco drawled. “Don’t pretend you understood it any better than I did.”

At that, Potter grimaced and held up his hands. “Fair,” he said, and his face broke into another one of those boyish, delighted grins. Draco wondered if Potter had really meant it when he offered a truce. He wondered if this is what it was like to be… perhaps not friends, no. But definitely  _ friendly _ with Potter. Stupidly, he wondered if things would have been different if he’d been less of a prat that day on the train. He shook the thought away, though. He wasn’t about to start scolding his eleven year old self for being… well, eleven.

“I’m knackered,” Potter admitted, before disappearing into the ensuite and shutting the door. Draco hears the old pipes groaning once Potter started the shower.

The book’s words marched like ants across the page when Draco’s exhausted, drunk eyes tried to focus on them. He gave it a good go, reading the same paragraph three times before finally clapping the book shut. Maybe he would have Yasmin look over it tomorrow while they were driving. She was young, but maybe she got N.E.W.Ts in subjects he didn’t. Two Curse-breakers surely had to be better than one.

Draco found himself nearly asleep on the couch by the time Potter returned from the shower, smelling like some magic-infused soap and shampoo. It filled the room with a clean, cinnamon scent. Potter, dressed down in his night clothes, knocked his foot against Draco’s ankle. “Come on,” he said, his voice holding back something like laughter. “The bed is enormous. Just… stay on your side.”

Draco heaved himself up off the couch, rubbing his palms over his eyes. The bedside clock read just barely past eight in the evening. He supposed they would have to get used to how far… ahead? Behind? America was than Britain. Draco was almost tempted to Apparate back to his flat for a sleep in his own bed, but he didn’t trust himself to be able to make the return trip to Lilith's Junction.

He showered, though that seemed dangerous as the hot water almost lulled him right to sleep standing in the tub. When he poured the soap and shampoo into his hands, the smell was something like papaya rather than cinnamon. He liked it and spent longer than strictly necessary basking in the papaya steam from the shower. When he got out, he pulled on his own sleep clothes and did a drying charm on his hair so he wouldn’t have to sleep on it damp.

Potter was in the bed when Draco finally exited back into the main room. He had the book Draco had bought propped up on his stomach, leaning back against the headboards. Draco combed his fingers through his hair before twisting it up into a bun at the top of his head. “I tried looking through it,” Draco admitted as he dropped onto the bed. “But I might have had a bit to drink.”

“I noticed,” Potter said, rolling his eyes. Draco’s stomach did something unpleasant.

“Coping,” Draco muttered as he stretched out on his side of the bed. It was big enough that there was no danger in getting tangled up in limbs during the middle of the night. As soon as his head was on the pillow, Draco felt the time difference and the alcohol working against him. “Finding anything useful?”

“I’m… not a Curse-breaker,” Potter said. “And I’m not any good at spell theory. Hermione was, though. She tried her level best when we were in fourth year to teach me a summoning spell by reading spell theory. Thought it was going to do my head in.”

“So you’re saying you might as well be reading French?”

Potter groaned and clapped the book shut. “Might as well.”

“J'étais jaloux de toi,” Draco said, just to rile him. It worked. Potter’s face was twisted up in that delightful mix of confused and irritated, something Draco had often attempted to inspire in as many people that he met-- well, back in school, at least. Now, he strived not to meet many people at all. “I still hadn’t figured out a summoning charm when I watched you during the Triwizard Tournament. I was furious.”

“What was the first bit you said?” Potter pressed.

“Oh, no, I like knowing things you don’t,” Draco said. “I think I’ll keep my spell theory and my French to myself.”

Potter handed him back the book and Draco dropped it onto the bedside table on his side. “You’re a different kind of horrible now, you know that?”

“Better?” Draco prompted.

Rolling his eyes, Potter scooted down in the bed and showed Draco his back. Still, he hadn’t hidden the edge of his smile, and Draco rolled over to sleep feeling pleased as papaya.

  
  


VI.

Like before, Draco woke in the early hours of the morning, long before the sun was ready to come up over the horizon. Though he couldn’t hear the patter of rain through the charmed sky ceiling of the town, thunder was still rumbling in the distance. Moving further away, probably. Draco lay with his eyes closed, breathing slowly, taking stock of his fingers, his knees, his belly, his throat. The blanket felt heavy on him, and when he shifted to pull it down, he found himself pinned by a firm weight across the waist.

Snapping his eyes open, Draco’s head felt dizzy from how fast his blood began to rush through his ears. When he looked down at himself, he saw a Quidditch-thick, brown arm slung around his middle. As he became more aware of himself, Draco found that Potter’s warmth was pressed along his back as well. He closed his eyes again, forcing his breathing to even out. It was such a strange feeling, being… no, he wasn’t being held. Being  _ held _ felt like an act that had to be conscious. He was being lain  _ on _ . There was an arm  _ on _ him, by no fault of his own.

He could move, he supposed. Potter’s grip wasn’t even particularly tight- just heavy. Draco imagined he could scoot himself out from under Potter’s arm and shove him back over onto his own side. What he  _ couldn’t _ do was just lay there and wait for Potter to move himself in his sleep. From how warm and damp with sweat his back felt, Potter must have been laying on him for some time. Alcohol and exhaustion must have kept Draco from startling awake at the first touch of Potter rolling too close.

The more he laid there and tried to decide what to do, the more Draco wished that he didn’t have to. Annoyance whipped his stomach into a frenzy. Hadn’t Potter been the one to tell him to stay on his side of the bed? His muscles tensed all along his spine, and he found that he couldn’t relax again. There was nothing for it. He was going to have to slip out of the bed and kick Potter back over to his side.

Draco dropped one hand to the arm around his waist. He curled his fingers around Potter’s wrist and carefully lifted his arm- dead weight. Absolutely passed out. Draco would have scoffed if he wasn’t almost terrified of having to acknowledge to Potter that this was happening. It was easy after that to slip out of the bed, dropping Potter’s arm back to the sheets when he stood. Draco had thought, maybe, after the war, Potter would be as light a sleeper as Draco found himself to be, now. But he slept on, face smushed into the space between his pillow and Draco’s.

The light coming from the street lamps outside in the square cast a pale, yellow glow over the bed. Draco stood there for an uncomfortable amount of time, just kind of swaying on his feet, feeling the phantom pressure of Potter’s arm across his midsection. Finally, he lifted one foot back up onto the bed and shoved Potter’s thigh. It took three kicks before he mumbled himself awake: “Wassappin?”

“I went to piss and you rolled on my side of the bed,” Draco said, voice dry from sleep. “Move.”

Potter groaned and rolled over onto his back, effectively shifting himself onto his side again. Draco wondered if the spot was cool to the touch. He wondered if Potter would realize it in his sleep haze, and know that he had been sleeping on Draco’s side for longer than a few minutes. The thought of having to admit, out loud, that Potter had been curled like a comma around him felt more impossible to bear than any other uncomfortable thing he’d had to endure so far.

But he didn’t. Potter squinted at him in the darkness for a maximum of ten seconds before his eyes closed and his face smoothed out again. Draco climbed back into the bed, and lay facing inward, this time. Potter’s face was slack with sleep. Draco always thought that people looked quite silly while they were sleeping. Looking at Potter now, it made him realize how deeply ingrained the tightness around his eyes and mouth were, even when he seemed to be in a pleasant mood.

Draco supposed he must look the same- whether for the same reasons, he couldn’t pinpoint. Exhaustion was creeping back on him. The clock on the bedside table didn’t glow like the Muggle ones in the hotel room, but there were no birds whistling outside the window, so Draco felt confident that they were still planted firmly in the middle of the night- perhaps only a hour or so past midnight. He let himself fall back asleep, peering at Potter’s relaxed face through the curtains of his heavy lashes.

When he woke again, it was to the jostle of Potter getting out of the bed, and the creak of his weight on the wooden floor. It was still nearly dark, though Draco could see the grey morning light outside the windows. Morning doves whistled pleasantly on the other side of the balcony doors. Draco buried his face back into the pillows, dragging the blankets up over his head.

The rustle of a paper bag drew his attention enough for him to peel the blankets down, squinting in the low light across the room at Potter.

“Are you eating  _ sweets _ for breakfast?”

Potter had sprawled himself half on the couch, digging into the bag of sweets they’d gotten from the shop the day before. Something about him in the early, grey morning made Draco’s stomach twist. It felt unpleasant in an unfamiliar way, and he rolled onto his back instead to look up at the ceiling.

“Lighten up,” Potter said, and tossed one of the wrapped candy sweets towards him. It landed on the bed sheets, and Draco pawed around until his fingers found the twisted plastic ends. As he lay there, he could feel the phantom weight of an arm across his waist. He could feel blood rush humiliatingly to his face as the night previous sunk back into his mind. The hot puff of Potter’s breath on the back of his neck, the press of his arm against his middle, thrown over him as if this were a particularly familiar habit of his.

Draco turned on the bed to hide his face, back towards the rest of the room as he unwrapped his sweet and popped it into his mouth. It changed flavor from toast and jam to coffee, then to tea. He sat up and swung his legs out of the bed, pausing to stretch his arms up and over his head. He could hear Potter rummaging in the paper bag for another sweet.

The bedside clock, now visible in the low morning light coming in from the balcony, read just half seven in the morning. He supposed they were getting better at adjusting to the drastic change in time. They got ready quicker than they had the previous morning. Draco hadn’t entirely expected to go stomping out in the mud and muck of a hiking trail when he’d packed his bags. Shoes were a bit less complicated than a couch, so with a little trial and error, he managed to transfigure his stylish boots for more durable hiking boots. Potter just shoved on his trainers that looked as if he’d had them since their school days.

Yasmin was waiting for them in the bar, yawning and nursing a mug of coffee that was nearly bigger than her head. “Thought I’d meet you here,” she said, and Potter offered her a toffee from their candy stash.

Draco felt irritated once they left Lilith's Junction and made their way back to the car, if only because Yasmin didn’t seem at all surprised by the metal monstrosity. She must have noticed Draco’s frown, because she shrugged and said, “We’re movin’ towards Muggle stuff, frankly,” she said. “Half the places you wanna go ain’t on the floo network in America.”

The magicked map knew exactly where they wanted to go, but Yasmin sat forward in the back seat so she could offer directions, leaning over the middle section between Draco and Potter’s seats. Draco warmed back up to her the longer they drove, and he was glad to have someone else to buffer the tension that still seemed to unfurl like mist whenever he and Potter were alone. Yasmin diffused that, somewhat. At the very least, Potter seemed much happier to have his attention on her.

The drive took just under three-quarters of an hour, Roanoke and Lilith’s Junction being left behind for more trees and wilderness. The storm had long passed, and the world that spread out around them was greener than ever before. The air was cool, and Draco fiddled with the buttons on the door of the car until the window rolled down. It whipped into the cab with a harsh, loud sound, but the smell of the earth and the water in the air made up for it. Potter said nothing of it, and Draco decided that meant he was permitted this indulgence.

“Alright, here,” Yasmin said, instructing Potter to turn down a small road, shrouded with trees on either side. “We put up a ward around where Muggles usually come down these trails to keep ‘em from messing up anything. I’ll take you the rest of the way.”

They parked the car as far as the road would let them before the ground turned narrow and the trees closed in. The moment Draco stepped out onto the muddy earth, the sense of peace evaporated. The forest was silent in a way that seemed unnerving. Their footsteps crunching twigs and kicking rocks and flattening grass were the loudest sounds. No insects, no birds, no yelping of small animals. It put Draco on edge, and he grit his teeth so tight is jaw began to ache.

Yasmin and Potter noticed it, too. They all looked at one another, uncomfortable. Potter was the first to draw his wand, and Draco followed. It wasn’t unlike the farmhouse. He could feel the residual magic, as if the trees and the earth had soaked it up from where the curse had been cast. He thought he ought to mention it, but he couldn’t seem to form the words as they pressed on along the trail. The sky was bright and clear above the canopy of the trees, although the air bit at his skin, still chilly as the sun struggled to make its way higher into the sky.

“It’s just up this way,” Yasmin said quietly, her voice the loudest thing among the trees. Draco was no expert on forests. But he remembered the Forest at school, and he remembered being foolhardy and fifteen, standing at the very edge on an old stump with his back turned while his friends egged him on. They would go down right at dusk, when the light was fading fast and the shadows dragged themselves from the trees. Whoever could stand with their back to the forest longest won.

It had been the last years of his youth that had in any way belonged to him.

More importantly, he had remembered the sounds of the forest- the chirp of the insects, whistling of the birds. Draco always knew to book it when the forest went silent, when the insects stopped singing. It was never good when the forest went quiet. That same feeling climbed unpleasantly up the back of his spine now, causing the hair at the back of his neck to stand on end.

The path veered sharply downward. Draco brought up the rear of their little caravan, with Yasmin leading. Draco could feel the ward when they entered through it, like a film clinging to his skin. The residual magic from the curse was strong here. Yasmin drew to a stop, looking around. Her expression was drawn tight. Draco didn’t have to ask to know that she was remembering what had happened her. Potter began to make a large arc around the area, stepping slow and careful, eyes scanning the trees and the ground. Draco didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t sure what they should be looking for. The farmhouse had presented them with another factor of uncertainty, making the already convoluted mess of this trip seem even more… messy.

Draco clenched his fingers rhythmically around his wand.

“Y’all ever seen that Muggle film?” Yasmin asked, her voice breaking the silence. Draco, who had never seen a film, said nothing.

“Which one?” Potter asked. He sounded amused.

“Just a couple years ago. About them kids in the woods?”

“Blair Witch?”

“Ain’t it funny? Muggles got all these ideas about witches and what not. I was just thinking, you know, shoot, I’d rather be them right about now.”

Draco had no frame of reference for what they were talking about, but Potter laughed, which diffused the tension somewhat. Not wanting to be left out of the camaraderie, Draco cleared his throat to get their attention.

“I can feel the magic here, too,” Draco said. “Like in the farmhouse.”

Potter frowned, and Yasmin looked alarmed. It wasn’t exactly the reaction he had been hoping for. Draco kicked over a rock with the toe of his boot, and went on: “I imagine the curse isn’t on the Muggles so much as its on the place. I don’t think the Muggles being targeted are for any specific reason. I think they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“That wouldn’t explain why they’re still symptomatic of the curse once they’re removed,” Potter said.

“It  _ would _ ,” Draco said, tersely. “If the caster is clever enough and determined enough.”

Potter’s expression seemed to open again. Draco couldn’t tell if what he was seeing there was pleasant surprise, or admiration. He tried not to dwell on it too much, and instead focused on the quiet forest around them. Yasmin fidgeted uncertainly, her own wand gripped tight in her fists, knuckles pale. Draco didn’t know what to say to reassure her, or even that there was any way to do so. He wasn’t feeling so great about this situation himself.

“So would the curse break if we broke it from here?” Potter asked, looking around them, head tilting back to gaze up at the canopy of leaves. The air was growing warmer as the sun inched its way higher in the sky. Draco couldn’t answer that definitively, so he only shrugged.

“Might do,” he said. “I’ve never seen this kind of magic before.” He was now quite wishing that he hadn’t gotten so roaringly drunk the night before and neglected to read some of that book he had gotten. He resolved to himself to head straight back to the Nest after this and spend the afternoon poring over the book.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, the forest broke its silence.

The snapping sound of the underbrush around them rang out like a shot. Thudding, heavy footsteps kicking through the forest made all three of them jump. Draco twisted where he stood, wand raising. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Potter and Yasmin do the same. And then, fearless, like some creature on the hunt, Potter took off for the sound. Draco’s heart sank, watching him break rank, as if war had taught him nothing.

Stupidly, Draco followed suit, hearing Yasmin swear before darting after them both.

The forest echoed around them. The sound felt as if it were coming from all around, from every tree, from every branch on the ground, snapping. Their own movements made it difficult to tell from where the sound was coming. Further off the path, the trees closed in deeper around him. Potter’s figure had disappeared through the branches and leaves that hung low and sharp from the trees. When he looked behind him, Yasmin had disappeared, too.

Draco drew to a sharp stop, listening hard. The forest had grown quiet again. Draco strained his ears, holding his breath, but could hear neither Potter nor Yasmin. Careful, Draco spun where he stood, the soles of his boots grinding against the loose leaves and twigs and foliage beneath him. He faced back the way he had come- what he was certain was the way he had come -and began to slowly pick his way back.

Something in his gut told him not to shout.

The forest, or perhaps the magic, had swallowed up the sounds from Potter and Yasmin, making it impossible for Draco to figure out which way they had bolted. Yasmin had been right behind him, of that he was certain. He kept expecting to run right into her around the next tree, through the next scratching veil of branches.

“Yasmin,” Draco hissed. His voice sounded muted to his own ears, lapped up by the nearest leaf.

When Draco had gone far enough that he was certain he should have been spat back out onto the trail, he found somewhat of a clearing- rather, the trees here had fallen, or been toppled, in an unsettlingly unnatural ring. Wand drawn, Draco stepped into the clearing. He was just about to send up sparks in a last ditch effort to draw Potter and Yasmin back towards him, when his foot slid messily across the grass, now suddenly damp.

_ Please don’t, _ Draco thought, staring straight ahead.  _ Don’t. Please don’t _ .

He sucked in a breath so deep it ached inside of his lungs as he looked down. The grass was damp, nearly soaked as if from a heavy rainstorm, with red. It stained his boots, and his eyes traced the familiar outline-- crude and splattered on the grass through it was, recognizable all the same. Freshly spilled. It made Draco want to apparate right back to Britain, to turn in his letter of resignation right that second. This was all some cosmic joke set on him to torment him: Potter, the Muggle transport, the curses, the Dark Marks splashed in blood on farmhouses and on forest floors.

The forest returned sound to him: crashing steps and creaking limbs, and Potter was spat out in the clearing, too, panting and confused, his expression ravenous. In the next moment, Yasmin stumbled out, too, across the clearing-- meters away from where she logically should have come out. “What?” Draco could hear Yasmin gasp.

“What--” Potter said, stepping forward. Draco threw one hand out towards him.

“Don’t,” he said, stepping back himself. He smeared his boot on the clean grass. Potter’s gaze shot down, and it took him only a few short, furious moments to take in what Draco had found. When Potter looked up, Draco met his gaze, feeling nauseous. The look he found there sent his stomach twisting over itself, his throat closing. What a fool Draco had been to think that a truce might have been reasonable, after all they had been through.

Their eyes met, standing over the Dark Mark smeared in blood on the forest floor; Draco’s stomach sank and the look in Potter’s eyes. It stung like lashes under his skin. Draco was certain that Potter could not hate him any more than he did in that moment.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't know anything about Virginia or what Joanne says about American Wizards! Hope you're in for a fun time with me!


	3. Middletown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> H-hewwo?? 
> 
> Thank you Julia for tirelessly editing all of the times I misspelled "breathe" and fixing all of the mistakes that come with typing up an entire chapter almost exclusively while not even looking at the screen.
> 
> Please do not say a single word about my bad magical linguistics. I'm passing my Ling minor by the skin of my teeth. If you comment on how poorly my fake magic linguistics are I will cry.

I.

The silence was deplorable. Draco stared, unable to sleep, at the motel wall. The wallpaper was peeling unattractively, and the bed felt too firm underneath him. It was the worst of the three motels they’d stayed at so far, and most decidedly  _ not _ in a Wizarding Ward. The day and a half of silence felt more monumental than anything else between them, and it stroked Draco the wrong way.

They were hours away from Roanoke, now. Hours away from the forest, from Yasmin, from the Nest and the warm hospitality of the barwitch. Draco ground his teeth together and listened to Potter shifting around, just as unable to sleep as he. He could hear the unspoken accusations that Potter must know were to fucking  _ insane _ to speak out loud, but that hung, harsh and furious, between them all the same.

Draco had been arguing with Potter in his head all day, getting himself more and more worked up.  _ Just say that you think I’m involved, _ Draco wanted to shout.  _ Just say that you can’t stop thinking about the mark on my arm. Just say it _ .

Potter’s silence had been steely since they left the forest, breaking only to call Yeltz and let him know what they had found on the ground there. Not even Yasmin’s nervous chatter had been able to unfrost him. Draco couldn’t come up with his own explanation as to why he had been the one to find the Mark both times. Surely, even Potter knew it was ludicrous to suspect his involvement, and yet Draco could feel the suspicion as if it were palpable in the air. It made him itchy just under his skin, where his blunt nails couldn’t penetrate.

The motel they were at now was dingy and cheap, and the mattress felt like stone underneath him. Draco didn’t know how he was expected to sleep when he could feel Potter not sleeping just as furiously on the other side of the room. He should say something. Draco’s teeth ground together, lips working in silence words.

Finally, Draco sat up in his bed. His skin felt hot. He felt like he might burst if he said nothing for just another moment longer. “It wasn’t me.”

His voice croaked from disuse. He could practically feel Potter stiffen on the other bed. He wondered if Potter were about to feign sleep, or if their furious silences were finally about to come to a head. Draco watched as Potter slowly rolled his way, then sat up in his own bed. He could feel Potter’s stare: angry, perhaps muzzy without his glasses. Draco stiffened his shoulders resolutely.

“I know,” Potter said, and he sounded pissed about it. Draco tried to breathe evenly.

“Then why-“

“Because that was my first thought,” Potter said, teeth click together with each word. “That you had something to do with this. That it was some… orchestration. The more I thought about it, the more… the more paranoid I became.”

“But you know that it’s  _ ludicrous  _ and  _ stupid _ to even think that,” Draco snarled.

Potter slammed one fist back against his pillows. “Yes! Okay? I know that.”

Relief flooded Draco so strongly that he felt like he might pass out right then and there, but he stayed upright. His lips pressed into a bloodless line; his hands fingered a loose thread of the sheets to begin to pluck at. “So why are you still…”

“Because I knew you at a time where it wouldn’t have been an impossible conclusion.”

It stung. Draco swallowed, his throat gone dry. “That’s not fair,” he croaked.

“I know,” Potter said after a beat of silence.

He didn’t apologize. Draco supposed he didn’t deserve one, not really. He sat uncomfortably upright, his mind ticking, struggling to find something to say. The silence bled around them, until it felt that even the highway outside of their hotel was devoid of the whipping sound of cars driving past.

But… well…

“I don’t think you’re entirely wrong,” Draco said after a moment. Potter made a noise.

“Not me, of course,” he said, snidely. “But someone.”

“Brilliant,” Potter said, dryly. “You come up with that on your own?”

“ _ Someone _ who must know why we’re here and what we’re doing. Someone with our case notes, even. With our schedule. Someone who knows where we’re going and when.”

Potter made another noise, this time uncertain. “I don’t know,” he said. “That would require a pretty big breach in security. And how would they even know? We didn’t plan to stay in Lilith’s Junction. That was a fluke.”

“News travels fast here,” Draco pointed out. “You saw how quickly Yasmin found us.”

They both shared an uncomfortable beat of silence. Neither of them wanted to even pretend to entertain the idea that Yasmin was involved, so they didn’t bother. “It wouldn’t require a security breach if it were someone on the inside, though,” Draco said, building off the idea anyhow. “How many times did that happen during… during.”

Draco couldn’t really bring himself to say  _ during the war _ , but it didn’t seem as if Harry begrudged him for it. Draco sat up more fully in his bed, swinging his legs over the side, feet on the floor. Potter followed his lead-- they two looked quite silly indeed in their night clothes and hungry expressions, Draco in long green sleeves and Potter in a soft, well-worn muggle tee-shirt. For another long beat they allowed the silence to sit between them.

“So we’re being followed?” Potter said.

Draco swiveled his tongue behind his teeth before answering. “I think we very well might be.”

Potter stood abruptly and clicked on the lamp before going for his bag against the end of his bed. He dug around for a moment before pulling out the Muggle phone. Draco hadn’t bothered to even look at his own. He hadn't needed to. Potter now pressed a few buttons, then held it to his ear. Over the small speaker, Draco could hear Yeltz’ tired, tinny voice.

“Sorry,” Potter said quickly. “I know it’s late.”

Draco listened as Potter gave Yeltz a quick run down of their latest idea. It felt like they had actually taken a step into a new direction, instead of just running dizzily and chasing their tails. Sleep was years away. Draco felt energized, and as Potter hung up with Yeltz, Draco found another idea forming.

“We should go back,” he said. Then, more thoughtfully: “Or go… forward? The next stop on the map is just an hour away, isn’t it? Skip it. If someone’s following us, if someone knows where we’re headed, then wherever we are is where they’ll go, too.”

“Why, though?” Potter asked. “Why the-- the blood the marks…”

“Scare us, probably,” Draco said, voice going flat. “What else were they used for? Someone doesn’t want us poking and prying. Maybe they figure we’re a bit squeamish at the sight of blood.”

They shared a wry smile.

“Not me,” Potter said.

“Not me, either,” Draco agreed.

“Lets go now,” Potter said, flashing a grin. “Shake it up.”

“Where? Which one?” Draco asked, leaping up from the bed. He pulled his luggage onto the end of the bed, throwing it open to dig for a clean shirt and trousers.

“We’ll pick at random,” Potter suggested. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco could see him pulling his tee-shirt over his head, reaching into his own bag for clean clothes. It reminded Draco of his Quidditch days, and he didn’t even think-- didn’t even stop to think, not for a second --as he tugged his sleep shirt over his head.

“ _ Draco _ .”

The sound of his given name shot cold water straight down Draco’s spine, and he twisted to look at Potter with an expression on his face that certainly must have looked like confused discomfort. But Potter wasn’t looking at him- not really, not at his face. Draco didn’t need to follow Potter’s eyes to know they were locked onto the marred and scarred skin of his forearm, where the Dark Mark had once etched itself into his skin, deeper than magic.

What lay there now was what Draco liked to imagine was a testament to his new life. But really, it was just a scar like any other he had sustained during the war. He didn’t want to look down, to acknowledge what Potter was seeing. He avoided even glancing at his own arm in the shower, when he dressed. He kept his sleeves buttoned to the wrists, and always wore his Curse-Breaker robes for good measure when he was out. He didn’t indulge in the cooling Muggle fashion that Potter had packed for the American heat.

Sucking in a breath, Draco looked down at his own wrist. The scar tissue was thick and piled on top of itself, giving a wide berth where the Dark Mark had once been. There had been a time where Draco had worried it would show up, anyway, right back over the gnarled skin. But it seemed that even the Dark Lord’s memory had its limitations.

“You-” Potter said, his voice sounding dry. Draco looked up again, and Potter’s eyes were now on his face. Draco almost expected to find pity there, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was dancing, unnerved, over Potter’s expression. “How?” Potter finally settled on.

Draco turned his wrists over in the orange glow of the increasingly familiar hotel lamp. The shadows rippled over the scar tissue. “The Muggle way,” Draco said, nearly voiceless. “I’d tried everything else. I’d just gotten my wand back after the trial. I couldn’t stand just… looking at it. Even when it was covered, I knew it was there and it was like everyone else knew it was there, too. It drove me crazy.”

“So you--” Potter swallowed. He didn’t finish his sentence, perhaps wisely. Draco didn’t think he could take it.

“So I took a knife,” Draco finished for him. “Not a particularly sharp one. I didn’t know how much effort it really took to cut through skin, you know. It’s tougher than it looks. That’s why it’s so… ugly.” He laughed, mirthless. “But it’s gone. Now people think they know, when they look. They think they know, but they don't. And that’s enough, most days. Having my own peace of mind back.”

Potter did something quite strange, then. He stepped towards Draco, slowly, as if approaching a spooked animal. Then he touched him, which felt, for a sharp second, entirely unbearable. Potter’s palm cupped the back of his forearm, turning it over. His other hand pressed over the scar-- it was numb there as it had been for some time, but Draco could feel the pressure of his arm between Potter’s hands. Draco could count on one hand the amount of times he and Potter had touched one another since this whole ordeal began-- one of those times being Potter’s body curled around his own while he slept.

This felt more intimate that that. It felt more exposing, more devastating, more terrible than any touch Potter had ever inflicted on him in the years they had known one another. In horror, Draco felt his face grow hot and his lashes grow tacky, salt stinging the back of his eyes.  _ No _ , Draco thought, his sinuses growing slick. He would not,  _ would not _ , cry in front of Potter.

“It’s over,” Potter said, voice low. “Okay? It’s- it’s over. It’s done.”

_ It _ could have meant a lot of things, but Draco almost instinctively knew what Potter meant. When he breathed, the inhale was wet. He wanted the floor to swallow him whole.

“Okay,” Draco replied, his throat tight.

“I’m not going to ask you to- flagellate yourself anymore.” Potter’s voice was a whisper now.

Draco wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t seem to form any sound at all. His lips pressed into a single, bloodless line and finally, he just managed to nod. Potter nodded back, and his hands slid off Draco’s arms, leaving his skin cooling as if from a burn.

Potter turned away to finish dressing, and Draco took the hint. He pulled on a button up and made sure the sleeves were clasped at the wrists. They dressed in a silence that felt frothing. Draco tried his best to breathe evenly, but his whole body felt out of sync. They gathered their things and Potter led the way out of the hotel room and into the dirt parking lot where the Muggle car stood, dark and imposing.

Draco took his wand from his pocket and gave it a quick flick over the car, lips moving soundlessly-- he hadn’t quite perfected wordless magic, but a whisper got the job done in most cases. He double checked that there was no kind of tracing magic on the car. When his diagnostic came back satisfactory, he nodded across the hood to Potter, and they packed the car and got in.

“Where to?” Potter asked as he started the car and pulled out of the lot. Draco reached into Potter’s knapsack under the dashboard and tug out the casefiles. He rifled through them, trying not to think too hard, and pulled one out at random. His eyes flickered over the case notes, trying to take in the town names without really taking in whatever catastrophe the curse had caused.

“Middletown,” Draco said, certainly. Sprawled across the dashboard, a bit crumbled now, the map dinged to life.  _ Middletown, Virginia. Arriving in two hours and fifty-one minutes! _

Draco felt a little pulse in his stomach, like maybe they were actually going to find something out now. It was still dark, late into the night, but he twisted around in his seat and dug through his luggage until he could pull out the  _ Deconstructing the Dark Arts _ book he had hastily shoved in the front pocket of his bag. Wand out, a soft  _ Lumos _ illuminated the tip of his wand, giving him something to see by. He held the pages open in his lap with one hand, holding his wand tip close to the words with the other.

Mostly, he was trying his best to take his mind off the phantom feeling of Potter’s warm hands clasping his arm, covering the numb scar tissue. To his credit, Potter said nothing as he followed the maps’s cheerful directions to get on the right route towards Middletown. Draco’s eyes had trouble focusing on the words, his mind running off without him, making it even harder to concentrate. Outside the car, the highway was dark and silent, with only the occasional car lights shining past them in the opposite direction.

Still, for the first time, since perhaps he was fifteen, Draco felt a lightness in his chest. It was as if his lungs had not been permitted to take a full breath until that night, and Draco hadn’t noticed until right that moment.

 

II.

_ The morphology of Curses is formed with three main components: morphemes, wand movement, and intention. Morpheme formation generally follows (Root) + (Suffix), the suffixes being +O, +A, +Ium, +Us. Irregular morphemes, such as descriptive suffixes in the case of Tongue Tying and Jelly Legs curse, are exceptions to the rule that prove necessary irregular construction of counter curses. _

_ Deconstructing a curse begins first with intention, whereas building one begins first with the morpheme. This is because a suffix, such as O or A, which denotes temporary or permanent change to the body of the object, must be chosen to achieve the builder’s intention, while the counter-curse may borrow from the morphemes of the original curse. _

_ If the original curse cannot be located, the suffix +Ium may be used to denote an action upon the object, in this case removal of a curse. _

“Anything good?”

Potter’s voice sounded miles away and Draco’s eyes stung as he pulled his face away from the shine of his wand and the pages of the book. They had stopped halfway to Middletown at the first lit Muggle truck stop Potter could find along the dark stretch of highway. As Potter got back in the car, Draco could smell the over-brewed scent of coffee, just before Potter shoved the styrofoam cup under his nose.

Draco took it, shaking the light out from the tip of his wand and laying it between the pages of the book to hold his place. “Yeah,” Draco admitted. “N.E.W.T levels only ever teach you Counter-curses, not how to build them from scratch.”

Potter hummed around a mouthful of coffee. Draco copied, sloshing the too-hot, nearly-burned liquid down. It tasted terrible, but Draco felt that they were both of the understanding that they wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. The little orange clock on the dashboard glowed  _ 3:04 A.M _ . Draco scrubbed one hand over his face, looking out into the dark world around them- the Muggle vehicles parked around the truck stop seeming to Draco as big as the planes. Potter had said that they used them to transport goods- every new thing Draco learned about Muggles made them seem almost insane in their quest for magic-like efficiency.

“Let me see the case notes on Middletown,” Potter said, reaching across the car and digging into the backpack Draco had tucked between his feet. It had the unintended effect of brushing Potter’s arm across Draco’s knees and calves, as casual a touch as they had ever had. Draco swallowed and shifted his legs, and Potter retreated with the papers in hand. Draco focused on burning his tongue with his coffee while Potter took out his own wand and lit the tip to read over the case notes.

He did so in silence, giving Draco a moment to contemplate what he had read himself. No one who had investigated the current files had any idea what the curses in place were. He could only imagine what the Healers at St. Augustine’s were going through trying to put the Muggles in their care back to rights. Draco also didn’t feel big-headed enough to imagine he was the only person involved who had ever picked up a book about the morphology of curses. Still, he felt he knew more about what could be done than he did before. Or maybe that was just the coffee, sloshing in his stomach and making the tightness behind his eyes recede a little.

“Shit,” Potter breathed.

“Mm?”

“Looks like whoever is doing this targeted a hotel that the Muggles already thought was haunted,” Potter said, flipping through the pages. “Heart this time.”

“They didn’t-“

“No,” Potter assured quickly. “It was a bloodbath, though.”

For once, Draco didn’t feel inclined to read the case notes himself. “Let’s go, then,” Draco said, pushing his fingers through the tangled ends of his hair and forcing himself to sit up straighter in his seat. They had a half-cocked plan to execute and Draco was ready to get back on the road. Potter tossed the case notes on top of the map, which gave an indignant little  _ bing! _ before telling Potter to  _ proceed to the route _ in a little voice that, for once, sounded less than pleased to be of assistance. Sheepishly, Draco picked up the pages and tucked them back into Potter’s bag.

“Do you think you’ll be able to break the Curses?” Potter asked after they’d gotten back on the highway. The car felt uncomfortably hot, but the night air outside wasn’t much better. Draco fiddled with the window before Potter finally gave an annoyed grunt and twisted a knob on the dashboard that blew out cool air from the vents along the sides.

“I don’t know,” Draco admitted, leaning back against his seat, thumb sliding along the hard edge of the book in his lap. “I’m  _ good _ , but I don’t know if I’m good enough to read a few chapters on morphology and know, instinctively, how to take apart a curse I don’t know the name of.”

_ Granger might _ , Draco thought, part in annoyance, part in desperation. She had been the only one in their year to ever best him in anything.  _ She _ probably read books on spell morphology for fun. She’d probably done so their O.W.L year. Draco was just working up the courage to ask Potter if he had a way to get ahold of her, when Potter said, “Hermione might.”

“I was thinking that,” Draco said.

“No?” Potter asked, laughing a little.

“I’ve learned when to admit defeat,” Draco said, in what he thought was a rather gracious way. It made Potter laugh again and something in Draco glowed.

“It should be close to afternoon time back home,” Potter said, glancing at the clock on the dash. “You could call her. She has a phone.”

The glow extinguished quickly. “You could call her,” Draco pointed out. “She’s your friend.”

“Driving,” Potter said, tapping the steering wheel. Draco, who had seen Potter drive with his knee while drinking his coffee, didn’t believe him in the slightest.

“I don’t- I don’t even know how to work those stupid things. And besides, Granger would just as soon as Curse me. She’s not going to talk to me.” Draco fidgeted with the edge of the book, peeling at the old covering with one fingernail.

“Oh, please. She knows you’re with me,” Potter said. “You don’t think I told Ron and Hermione I was about to be stuck with you for who knows how long?” His tone was light, teasing. Draco could pick it out, now, more easily that he could before. It was like a balm over the immediate swell of indignation at his wording. But maybe that was part of the way Potter teased, too.

“All the more reason for her to throw the thing out the window the moment she hears my voice,” Draco said.

“Go on,” Potter said. Draco could hear the barely suppressed smile in his voice.

Turning in his seat again, Draco dug through his luggage until he found the garish pink Muggle phone that he had been given, otherwise untouched. Potter recited a series of numbers, then had to start over when Draco struggled to figure out just how to punch them into the phone. The learning curve with Muggle technology served to make Draco feel more out of his depth that ever in his life. He wondered if Granger growing up Muggleborn gave her some unfair advantage to her studies, having to figure out all this Muggle crap before she’d ever turned eleven.

“Hermione Granger speaking.”

Steeling all his nerves, Draco cleared his throat before speaking. “Granger.”

“Who’s this?”

“Er- Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, with… the Curse-breaking Department.”

Silence crackled noisily on the other end of the phone, then Draco heard the tinny sound of a door being shut.

“What can I do for you Mr. Malfoy?”

This close in the car, Draco’s suspicion that Potter could hear Granger’s voice through the speaker was confirmed when he couldn’t quite stifle a laugh in time. Draco leaned as far as he could against the passenger side door.

“I’m ah- I’m looking for a consultation of sorts,” Draco said. “My partner and I thought you might be able to assist us in a case we’re working in North America.”

“Harry?” Granger piped up. “Harry told you to call me?”

“It was his idea, yeah,” Draco said, snide. “It hasn’t got to do with Muggle Liaison, though.”

“Yeah, no, I’ve got other talents,” Granger assured.

Oh, he quite liked her now.

“I’m counting on that,” Draco shot back. “What do you know about spell morphology?”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, evidently while Granger thought. “Oh, gosh. Quite a bit, I think. I sat a N.E.W.T for Spellbuilding.”

“That’s-  _ quite _ a bit?” Draco rubbed his hand over his face, and Potter laughed outright, now. “You’re both as bad as each other.”

“What do you need to know?” Granger asked smoothly.

“I need to know where you would begin building a Counter-curse without having the original curse,” Draco said. “I’m loathe to admit that I’m out of my depth here.”

“Gosh,” Granger said again. “Yeah, I could probably figure it out. I’d need to know the effect of the curses. Shoot, you’re all the way out there… I can’t rightly owl you either, can I? The phone you’re on, does it get messages?”

Draco, unsure, glanced sidelong at Potter, who nodded. “Yes,” he said, as if he knew how to use the phone to do that. “If I got you a copy of the case notes, would you be able to help us work out the counter-curse?”

“I could try,” Granger said. Her voice had changed somewhat in tone, but Draco couldn’t pinpoint it. She sounded receptive, though. He wondered how much that had to do with knowing that helping him was also helping Potter.

“Thank you,” Draco said emphatically. When Granger spoke next, he could hear the unmistakable sound of lips curling around a smile in her voice.

“You’re welcome, Malfoy.”

They hung up the phone and Draco tucked it into the pocket of his trousers. Outside the car, the night was still and quiet but for the whipping of the air along the windows. Inside, he and Potter said nothing for a long moment. Finally, Potter broke it.

“She forgave you a long time ago, you know,” Potter said, quietly. “After the results of your trial were posted in the Prophet.”

Something about that made Draco’s insides squirm, though not entirely unpleasantly. He didn’t know what to say to that, so he opted for nothing. He imagined that Granger must be a better person than he or Potter combined. In lieu of letting the silence stretch, Potter reached for a dial on the dashboard, and the car filled with music, too loud, until Potter fiddled with it to soften the sound. It was Muggle music, not entirely unlike the few Wizarding bands he had heard, and not unlike the one that had played at the Yule Ball. He was pleased to know that Wizards and Muggles had almost something in common, some thread of connection that didn’t make one or the other seem so otherworldly.

It wasn’t the same, the silence between them now, other than being filled with peppy, upbeat music that thrummed under Draco’s skin. A tension that had been there before was gone. Draco could feel it as absently as he could feel the magic in the farm house and the forest. Each breath he took felt more loose than the last, until his chest was as light as a balloon.

They drove through the night, and it was still dark when they reached Middletown, asleep and quiet as they followed the map’s directions through the early morning streets. The closer they got, the more alert Draco felt. The hypothesis that they were being followed by someone who had all of the case information settled uneasily at the back of his neck, making the loose hairs there stand on end as Potter pulled the car up to the next curse-site. Even from the car, Draco could feel the magic of the place in waves: the curse, and the wards, fighting sternly to keep it inside and to keep Muggles from really seeing it, from wandering in and disturbing what was now a crime scene.

The ornate sign on the front declared the building  _ The Wayside Inn _ . It didn’t look so much of a functional inn as it did a tourist destination. There were no lights on and Draco imagined the building had been empty of Muggles since the incident occured. Unseen to their eyes. Potter started up the walkway towards the door, his wand drawn and picking his way through the wards. Draco hovered behind by the car, deciding last minute to put a similar charm over the car to make it unseen to passersby. If they were being followed, he didn’t want to give it away that they had arrived.

Like an optical illusion, the car flitted in and out of Draco’s perception, and he had to focus hard to see it underneath his own magic. Satisfied, Draco turned and followed Potter up towards the inn, watching his broad shadow on the front steps. He was unlocking the door with a whispered flick of his wand as Draco reached him.

“Do you feel the magic here, too?” Potter asked, lighting his wand as he stepped through the front door and into the foyer. Draco followed suit, nodding in the soft glow of their wands.

“Feels like it’s sticking to my skin,” Draco admitted. He felt Potter brush close to him, shoulder to shoulder.

They made their way through the lower level. The Auror and Curse-breaker teams who had been there before them had, like the farmhouse, not cleaned up the evidence of what had happened there. Through the dining room, tables and chairs were strewn from their rightful places. The combined light from their wands illuminated swaths of dried blood on the floor and discarded table clothes. Draco’s stomach flipped over.

“You weren’t kidding about a blood bath,” he said.

They split up on the lower level, checking each room for anything disturbed beyond what had been left by the last team that had been there. Draco listened carefully to the sounds of Potter’s footsteps creaking through other parts of the inn, loud in the otherwise silence around them. Like the forest, Draco couldn’t even hear the crickets creaking outside the building. The rest of the ground floor was in order, so Draco ascended the stairs when he came back around to the foyer.

Upstairs there were rooms, but nothing out of the ordinary. It looked as if they had certainly reached Middletown before whoever had been leaving the bloody Dark Marks behind. The more Draco thought about it, the more he was sure he was correct. Someone knew where they were going, someone knew their moves maybe even before they made them. If that were the case, then it had to be someone involved in the case- another Curse-breaker or Auror, even. The thought made Draco bristle with distaste. His father had known enough corrupt men in the Ministry to convince Draco that it was entirely possible- and probable.

Draco skittered sideways into one of the rooms, extinguishing his wand as he moved to the window that overlooked the street. Outside was quiet. Streetlights illuminated the front of the inn and the surrounding street, casting long, still shadows. Below, Draco could hear Potter making his way through more rooms. Draco counted his tread in his head until it became a familiar beat.

On the street below, a shadow peeled itself from the darkness and stepped out into the street. Draco’s heart leaped into his throat. As the person slunk towards the inn, Draco heard Potter’s footsteps on the stairs. He spun away from the window and eased into the hall.

“Nox that,” Draco hissed. Potter obeyed almost immediately, tapping his wand against his thigh and plunging them into darkness. “There’s someone outside.”

“What?” Potter breathed. Draco could very well picture the pinching of his brows and the downward turn of his lips. Potter made a move to enter the very room that Draco had just quit, ostensibly to look out the window, but Draco pawed frantically in the darkness until he grabbed a hold of Potter’s shirt and jerked him to a halt, using his shoulder to guide Potter and himself against the nearest wall.

“Listen,” Draco whispered.

There was nothing for a long stretch, just the soft rasping of their breathing puffed between parted lips. Draco could feel Potter’s breath against his jaw, that’s how closely they stood. Draco had not yet released the fabric of Potter’s shirt from where he had grasped it in one fist. He could feel the tension in Potter’s body, the strain of how hard he was listening. For a brief beat, Draco questioned whether he had allowed paranoia to cloud his judgement.

Then, the click of the lock on the door downstairs, loud now as they struggled hard to listen. The door easing open, creaking like a gunshot. An uncertain tread on the hardwood. Draco carefully raised his wand and released his hold on Potter as he slunk, one careful foot in front of the other, along the wall towards the mouth of the stairwell.

He could hear harsh breathing below. Draco readjusted his grip on his wand. Whoever this was, they stumbled about quite loudly before huffing, “ _ Lumos! _ ”. A faint glow from the bottom of the stairs pushed Draco flush against the wall, back into the shadows. Potter was right behind him, chest nearly flush with Draco’s shoulder blades. Draco’s mind whirred, struggling to figure out the best way to get down the stairs before whoever it was realized they were there.

Draco felt an unnerving buzz along his thigh just before a dissonant tune sprang forth from his pocket. It took him a moment of confused fumbling to realize that it was the Muggle phone that he had tucked away into his pocket after talking to Granger. Snarling, Draco ripped it from his pocket and dropped it to the floor, pressing his heel down with a satisfying crunch that silenced it right away. It didn’t matter, though. Potter ripped away from the wall and nearly threw himself headlong down the stairs, and all Draco could hear in the darkness was two sounds of pounding feet along the floorboards.

Swearing, Draco followed down the stairs, skidding to a stop at the bottom step when a jet of red light shot by his face and hit the wall with a crack.

It was almost impossible to see but for the orange lamp light coming in through the windows along the outer walls. Two dark figures battled and it was only by flashes of spell-light that Draco could make out which figure was Potter.

“ _ Expelliarmus! _ ” Draco did his best in the darkness, but his disarming spell just missed, knocking over a bookshelf in the foyer and making it clatter to the ground. Someone thudded messily over the strewn books and shattered wood pieces and Draco hoped to Merlin that it wasn’t Potter.

Thankfully, Draco heard Potter’s voice cast a leg-locking jinx, but the other dark mass skidded just around the corner, down a hall. Potter bolted after and Draco, mind whirring, spun and went for the front door instead. He threw himself out into the slowly budgenoning morning, illuminated faintly by the surrounding street lamps and the graying sky. If Draco knew the cowards and corrupt— and he very much did —then he had a feeling that any moment now, any second—

Glass from a ground floor window blasted outwards and what Draco could now, faintly, see was a wizard clambered out, falling over himself. Draco raised his wand.

“Hey!” He shouted. “Wand down!”

A pale, young face twisted to look at him— big, startled eyes, blond hair hidden mostly under a drawn hood of his robes. The young wizard, not more than a boy really, raised his wand in one shaky hand. The sight of it made Draco’s skin ache, his vision nearly tunneling. It was a momentary impasse, before Potter climbing out of the window broken the standoff. The boy jumped, twisted and turned to run.

“Don’t!” Potter shouted. “Just give it up, we’ve got you.”

Draco groaned and jogged off the sidewalk and into the street, aiming to block the young wizard’s escape in at least one direction, wand still raised.

The boy skidded to a stop and for a moment, Draco thought that he was about to give in. The rest happened in the blink of an eye, in the space of a moment, Draco opening his mouth to disarm him. The boy stopped and spun in place, wand raised— everything moving, like cogs in clock, all at once. Potter’s hand caught the boy’s upper arm— a crack of magic, the sound familiar as his mother’s voice. It happened so quickly that Draco didn’t even have time to realize what was happening, to open his mouth and shout, “ _ Harry, no! _ ” Before it was over, as quickly, stupidly, strangely as it had begun.

Draco stood out on the street in front of the inn, breathing heavy, staring at the place that Potter and the boy had once been standing. Both gone, now— Potter caught up in a Side-along, gone to wherever, the whim of nothing more than child.

 

III.

The first echoes of the morning birds flittered to life around him as the grey sky lightened incrementally, bit by bit while Draco stood, stunned, feeling unable to unwrench himself from the spot on the road. He waited. He thought,  _ Surely, he’ll pop right back _ . He stood and listened for the loud crack of magic that signified the quick comings and goings of his kind, but none came.

“Potter,” Draco found himself saying out loud, as if calling him would summon him back. “ _ Potter _ .”

There was nothing but another whistle of a nearby bird.

Draco waited long enough there in the street that he began to feel the frustrating well of humiliation rise up in his throat. Here he stood, a fool, and stranded to boot.

Finally, after what felt like far too long, Draco unstuck himself from the road and made his way back towards the inn.  _ The phone _ , he thought, uselessly. That stupid, horrific Muggle device that had caused so much chaos with three, sharp musical notes. He lit his wand and traipsed through the inn, back up the stairs to where the little pink, crumbled plastic lay at the top of the stairs.

“Stupid thing,” Draco muttered. “ _ Reparo! _ ”

The plastic and little wires inside zipped and knit themselves back together. He held the device in his palm, growing only more in his animosity towards it when he tried to figure out how to get it to ring the other phone that Potter had. He gave up as the distinct memory of Potter tucking the phone into his knapsack sent an unease roiling through his stomach. The little screen told him he had a missed call from the number he had dialed to get ahold of Granger.

Sliding down the wall, Draco sat on the top of the stairs with the overwhelming urge to chuck the Muggle phone all the way down the stairwell.

He gave into the urge to slam his fist back against the wall, and then to throw his whole body backwards, the wall creaking under the strain of his shoulder blades falling against it. “You  _ idiot! _ ” Draco snarled. He kicked one foot against the banister of the stairs. It wobbled dangerously. “Potter, absolute  _ idiot _ !”

The sting on his scalp with his fingers twisted into the ends of his hair felt good. It nearly made his eyes water, but it stemmed the ebb and flow of his alternating fury and panic. He forced himself to breathe through his nose, breath rasping in the empty inn.  _ If you weren’t so foolhardy, _ Draco thought, teeth gritting together.  _ You never think _ .

Slamming his foot once more into the banister, Draco closed his eyes tight and let the adrenaline in his body take over.

_ Get ahold of yourself _ . Scrubbing his hand viciously over his face, Draco pushed himself to stand, tucking the phone back into his pocket. He needed to contact Yeltz. Yes, that was the first thing, to let him know that they’d found who had been leaving the Dark Mark. And that Potter, stupid, idiot, foolhardy Potter who couldn’t see an inch in front of his own nose, had gotten himself Side-along’d with a volatile kid.

Dropping the charm on the car to keep it hidden, Draco climbed into the passenger side as he was so used to doing, at least so that he wasn’t standing on the street as the sky continued to slowly lighten. He fumbled with the phone, clicking each button in order to figure out how best to operate it. He found Yeltz’s name programmed in and when he clicked it, the phone began to ring just as it had done when he’d entered the numbers to call Granger. The ringing clicked off after almost a full half minute, and Yeltz’s drawling, groggy voice filled his ear.

“A bit early, ain’t it?” Yeltz grumbled, his mouth sounding like it was full of marbles.

“We were right,” Draco said without preamble. “About someone following us. Or at least knowing where we’re going. We beat him to the inn in Middletown but when we tried to apprehend him he made an escape. Potter got caught up in a Side-along when the kid tried to apparate away.”

There was a staticky silence and then Draco heard some rustling, like he’d caught Yeltz still in bed and he was sitting up now to give Draco is full attention. “What do you mean kid?”

“I mean he was a kid. Seventeen, probably, just passed his apparation test.” Draco closed his eyes tight, not wanting to think about the splicing that could happen with an inexperienced wizard trying to do a Side-along he hadn’t prepared for. _ Please let Potter still be in one piece _ .

Yeltz swore on the other end. “Alright,” he grunted. “Alright. Sit tight, Mr. Malfoy, I’ll send an Auror team out there.”

Draco resisted the urge to begin shouting at him. A team of Aurors wasn’t going to do him any good. What were they doing to do, sniff the air and scratch their arses and guess where Potter had been taken? Draco pulled his hair down from its ponytail, tangling his fingers through it in an effort to remind himself to keep his voice even as he spoke. “I think we’re beyond a team of Aurors at this point,” Draco said, words measured.

“Just keep your britches on,” Yeltz said in a voice that was not at all reassuring.

When he hung up, Draco wanted nothing to do with the phone and shoved it to the bottom of Potter’s bag, still sitting underneath the dashboard on the floor in the passenger side. There was a low cover of clouds that muted the early morning light as the sun inched its way over the horizon. The surrounding neighborhood would start to awaken soon. Muggles amidst Yeltz’s Aurors crawling all over the place. And Draco, suddenly finding himself the most useless of all.

The crack of an apparation, loud even through the metal of the car hub, drew Draco upright and out of the car. There were no red robes on the streets around him, but as he spun to look up the walkway of the inn, he saw a few wizards in street clothes in the open doorway. More than that, he saw familiar olive skin and sleek black hair. Yasmin’s welcoming grin as she saw him seemed so out of place here. When they said goodbye at Lilith’s Junction it had been compounded by the tension of the discovery in the forest, and how openly Potter wasn’t speaking to him.

He was glad to see her now.

“They needed a Curse-breaker to come along and I was on call! Imagine!” Yasmin said brightly, bodily moving the two Aurors out of the way so Draco could duck back into the inn. They had lit the lamps somehow and the damage in the foyer spread out around them. “They said you caught someone? Where’s Harry?”

_ Harry, Harry, Harry _ . The name caught in a loop in Draco’s head for some reason, wiggling its way in the far corners of his psyche.  _ Where’s Harry?  _ And wasn’t that just the question? Potter’s voice as he had called him by his own given name came, unbidden, leaving him feeling all the more frustrated in a way that he couldn’t even imagine externalizing or verbalizing.

“Don’t know,” Draco said, watching as Yasmin’s expression faltered and then fell.

“What do you mean?”

Tired of repeating himself, Draco explained to Yasmin and the two Aurors who had come with what happened. After he finished, the Aurors checked the lower level and Yasmin stood at his side, her olive face nearly white now. Among the mess in the foyer, there was a broken bottle of blood replenishment potion that struck Draco as both alarming and unsurprising.

“It’s his own blood,” Draco whispered. Yasmin’s small hand found its way to the crook of his elbow and she held him tightly there. He was glad for it.

“Why would he do that?” Yasmin asked, her fingertips digging deeper into the crease of Draco’s elbow.

“He looked scared.” It wasn’t an excuse, not by a long shot. But Draco remembered being young and scared and doing what he thought he needed to do just to keep going forward-- not even what he had thought was right, anymore. His mind kept circling back to Potter; where he was, if he had managed to keep all his limbs, if he had caught hold of the boy and got out of him what on earth he was doing.

“We’ll find him,” Yasmin said, her voice soft. “Or he’ll find you.”

The thought was reassuring. Potter was nothing if not hard to kill. Draco knew from experience.

But he needed to do something. He wasn’t going to be stuck here, stupid and useless, without Potter. He was better than that by far. “Yasmin,” he said suddenly, turning to look down at her. Her big, brown eyes looked back up at him, face pale but steeled. She looked determined and that’s exactly what Draco needed right now.

“What do you know about spellbuilding?” Draco asked.

Yasmin’s face flickered through confusion before settling onto something like surprise. “Oh!” She laughed. “Um, I sat a N.E.W.T in it. I got an Acceptable.”

“I didn’t,” he said. “Wasn’t that ambitious. I have a--”  _ Friend _ is on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it back down. “--colleague who got an Outstanding. I found a book that might help us break the curses but I don’t know a thing about building counter-curses. Between the three of us--”

“Oh, you don’t even have to ask!” Yasmin said, bowling over the last of Draco’s sentence.

“Great,” Draco breathed. “Come with me to the car.”

They left the Aurors to look over the mess that had been left, to run their diagnostic spells and whatever else they thought was going to help locate Potter after he got ripped away by a frantic, scared teenager. If Draco could do nothing to find where Potter had gone, he could at least do something here. He could, at the very least, get Granger back on the phone and work with Yasmin and maybe, just maybe, they might be able to put together a counter-curse for the inn-- and then, too, for the other places around that had been targeted.

Draco sat with Yasmin in the bench seat in the back of the car. She knew how to use a phone far better than he did, and so he let her call Granger.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Granger greeted.

“Ms. Granger,” Draco parroted. “You called earlier. I was-- we were-- busy,” he finished lamely. He didn’t want to say anything about Potter, not yet. Maybe he was just still hoping that he would crack back into existence, like the whole thing was just a laugh of a mistake.  _ Oops, silly me! _

“Right,” she said, her tone easy and authoritative. He imagined her staff jumping to attention at the sound of her voice. “I dug out some of my old notes about spellbuilding. I thought they might be useful.”

“Fantastic,” Draco said-- and meant it. It was a relief. “I’ve got someone here with me. She got an A in spellbuilding. I didn’t sit a N.E.W.T for it. I thought she might be more helpful to you than me.”

“Mr. Malfoy, have you made a friend?” Granger was  _ teasing  _ him. Draco could tell, because she had the same tone of voice that Potter did. He couldn’t help but wonder who picked it up from who, or if it developed as a result of their childhoods being so irrevocably intertwined.

“I think so,” Draco replied, before handing the phone over to Yasmin.

They got along.  _ Swimmingly _ . Draco felt almost superfluous as Yasmin spoke, mentioning nothing about Potter when Draco shot her a warning glance and drew his thumb across his neck. Yasmin had conjured up some lined parchment and a Muggle pen and Draco was tasked with writing while she and Granger talked. Yasmin did something with the phone to make Granger’s voice inside of it louder so that he could hear them both.

_ Feels like a day at the office _ , Draco thought, deliriously, reminded by his slow, sloppy writing that he and Potter had forgone sleep in order to get to Middletown in the dead of night. Morning was upon them now and the temperature began to rise so quickly in the car that they moved back to the inn to keep working, Yasmin and Granger never once stopping in their stream of chatter, Yasmin reading off the Middletown casenotes and Granger reading off her spellbuilding notes on the other end.

They sat among the wreckage in the foyer, Draco’s hand cramping as he tried to keep up.

The aurors had found nothing. Draco could have strangled them, but what else were they to do? All that was left to do now was  _ sit _ and  _ wait _ and  _ hope _ , ever so vaguely, that Potter still had his head, or his arms, or his torso, and that he would make his way back to them-- or somewhere, anywhere, that he might get ahold of someone, anyone. Not knowing was turning Draco’s stomach into snakes, and he pressed one palm against his lower belly as he scribbled out the notes Granger and Yasmin vollied back and forth onto the paper.

After a time-- the inside of the inn was starting to heat up with the day, now, too --Draco had an entire page worth of notes and morphemes connected to one another, counter-curses that had not existed until he wrote them. Still, they were all just words, now. They could be nothing at all. They could just be sounds. It would take more than just the words. The book had said wand movement and intention. His mind buzzed, exhausted, trying to imagine how he would come up with  _ those _ components, too.

“I need a break,” Draco groaned, pressing the heels of his palms against his eye sockets. “And food.”

“Oh, gosh. I’ve got to go, too,” Granger’s tinny voice said over the phone speaker. “Ron’ll have a cow, I’m late getting home.”

“We’ve got it from here,” Yasmin assured, patting Draco’s knee. “Maybe. We’ll call you if we’re stuck.”

“Where’s Harry? I want to say hello,” Granger said, apropos of nothing. Draco’s stomach dropped. “He didn’t help at all, is he around?”

“He’s…” Draco exchanged and uncomfortable look with Yasmin.

“Went to follow up on a lead they found at one of the sites,” Yasmin said. Draco squeezed his eyes shut-- she was a terrible liar. Her voice wobbled all over the place and it went an octave higher than it normally was.

“Well, at least he’s doing something useful,” Granger said, her own voice distracted. “You’ll have him call me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Draco said quickly. “Soon as he’s back round.”

After they hung up the phone, Yasmin gave him a little punch in the arm. “Why aren’t you telling her? Isn’t she your friend?”

“She could kill me,” Draco deadpanned. “Possibly from London. I don’t want--” He didn’t want Granger blaming him, he realized. He wanted to be in her good favors. “Well, anyway, it’s only been a few hours. He could turn up any minute.”

The words sounded hollow in his ears and he could tell that Yasmin was wavering on uncertain, too.

“What now?” Yasmin asked. The aurors had left to patrol the neighborhood, as if their teenage culprit would be wandering the streets, just waiting to be caught. Draco didn’t know how to answer, so he opted for silence, looking down at the notes he had taken-- so many that he had crammed more in the margins of the page. He flexed his fingers and took a breath.

“I think I’m in over my head,” Draco said.

Yasmin laughed, her voice wavering. “Can you swim?”

Looking up again, Draco managed to crack a smile. “I can.”

Yasmin took his hand in her own and squeezed. “Then let’s tread water, sugar.”

 

IV.

They got greasy American food and holed up in the inn for the rest of the afternoon. When the sun started to inch towards the other side of the horizon, Draco dropped his wand from where he had been trying different want movements to see what stuck and said: “I think we can start to worry now.”

“You been worried,” Yasmin muttered from the floor, bent over  _ Deconstructing the Dark Arts _ .

Ruffled, Draco looked away. “I mean  _ really _ worry.”

“You been doin’ that too.”

“Come try this,” Draco snapped. “ _ Intermissium _ , but move your wand like this.” He demonstrated, then stepped back from the little area he had cleared out from the wreckage in the foyer.

Yasmin heaved herself off the floor. “ _ Intermissium _ doesn’t work.”

“Yes, well, neither does  _ corde finisium  _ or  _ corde factium _ .”

“What about your intention?”

Draco slid down the nearest wall to the floor with an exhausted groan. He hadn’t slept still, and his eyes were starting to water every time Yasmin reminded him about intention. “ _ Yes _ ,” he said emphatically. “Remove the bloody curse and go home.”

Yasmin laughed. “I don’t think that’s strong enough.”

“I  _ really _ want to go home.”

Raising her wand, Yasmin repeated the wand movement Draco had showed her a few times before shouting, “ _ Intermissium! _ ”

Nothing happened. Draco could still feel the magic seeping into the boards of the inn, tickling along the back of his neck, causing the fine hairs on his skin to stand to attention. Each failed attempt at a counter-curse seemed to incense the magic more. A headache started to form behind his eyes, thudding with each beat of his pulse.

“I don’t think that’s it, chief,” Yasmin sighed.

“ _ Acciperium? _ ” Draco looked down at the notes that he had compiled from their phone call with Granger. “We’d only tried that a few times.”

Yasmin folded herself to the floor beside him, shoulder to shoulder. “ _ Rursus dareium? _ ” Yasmin suggested.

“I really think it’s  _ intermissium _ .”

They squabbled, not unkindly, for a few more minutes about what incantation would work best before Draco stood again to give it another go.

_ This will help people _ , Draco thought, closing his eyes and breathing deep as he raised his wand.  _ This will save people. No one has to get hurt anymore if you can just get this right. _

He tried to clear his mind, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, Potter’s voice came unbidden to his thoughts. Draco imagined what his face might look like when he said, “ _ Draco, that’s brilliant! _ ” after discovering that Draco had managed to find the right combination of incantation and wand movement to build the counter-curse they needed to stop whoever was tormenting the Muggles.

“ _ Intermissium! _ ”

Several things happened at once.

First, Draco could feel the magic flowing from his hand to his wand and back again, the spell curling its way up from his fingertips and out into the air of the inn. He could  _ feel _ it wanting to take place, lapping at the curse still trapped in the inn from the wards that kept the Muggles from wandering back into its devastating maw. Surprise and delight leaped inside of him, wiping the exhaustion from his eyes for a moment.

Before the counter-curse could release itself from his wand, Draco’s concentration snapped like a twig when a loud  _ crack!  _ reverberated inside the foyer. Yasmin cried out in something like horror. Lowering his wand, Draco twisted on the spot, throat tight, heart climbing up his sternum.

“ _ Harry _ ,” Draco breathed, soundless.

Potter stumbled on the spot, nearly bowling Yasmin over as she tried to steady him back against the nearest wall. He looked…  _ alright _ , for the most part, except for the gaping gash that had once been his bicep. It looked as if Potter had torn pieces of his shirt to tie it off in a makeshift tourniquet.

“I’m fine!” Potter said at once, though his skin looked pale and he had a fine sheen of sweat over his forehead. “Just a little Splice, that’s all.”

“Little!” Yasmin shouted. “Where have you  _ been _ ?”

It felt impossible to go to Potter the way Yasmin was now, her small hands on him, keeping him steady. Draco stood rooted on the spot, his vision going spotty at the edges.

“Long story,” Potter said, eyes flickering up and catching Draco’s. There was  _ so much _ in that look and it made Draco want to look away. He battled down his cowardice and didn’t dare. “You waited for me,” Potter said then, not looking elsewhere.

“I can’t drive,” Draco said. He could feel himself paling.

“The Aurors should be back any minute, they’ve been making rounds,” Yasmin said quickly, furtively eyeing the space where the rest of Potter’s bicep had been. “St. Augustine’s is the nearest hospital. They can Side-along you. I’ll take Draco.”

Something significant hung in the air that Yasmin couldn’t touch and that Draco couldn’t place. Wherever Potter had been, whatever had happened, Draco could tell that he wanted to speak it, but not in front of Yasmin. The idea of that was almost too much to handle on no sleep. He had to reach out and steady himself against an opposite wall, palm flat. His wand-hand shook. It took him longer than it ought to to realize that what he was feeling was the buzz of relief, so palpable and strong that it made him want to vomit.

Or maybe that was something else.

“It was  _ intermissium _ ,” Draco said faintly.

“What?” Potter asked, his brow furrowing. It was familiar, now. That look.

“The counter-curse,” Draco said. “We built one.  _ Intermissium _ . It started to work before you showed up.”

“Sorry.” Potter grimaced as Yasmin leaned him back against the wall and darted to the front door of the inn. “Give it another go. Let me see.”

He kept looking at him. Draco wanted to place it, but he couldn’t. There was something there that hadn’t been before and it was driving Draco to distraction. He wanted to shake him, but he was missing a good portion of his arm so he refrained.

“I--” Draco paused. “It’ll still be here. After we take care of your arm.”

Yasmin returned with the Aurors. “He’s got himself Spliced,” she said. “They’ve not been to St. Augustine’s. They’ll need a Side-along to get there.”

The new commotion forced Potter to break his hold on Draco’s gaze; Draco was both pleased and disappointed. He had felt on the cusp of understanding what Potter had been trying to tell him with his eyes alone. The Aurors were hesitant to Side-along Potter with his arm the way it was, worried that it might cause more damage just to get him to the hospital.

“Well, he’s already missing it,” Draco snapped, finally. “They’ll grow back any more that’s missing.”

Yasmin waited for them to go first before she took Draco’s arm and spun them. He squeezed his eyes shut. Apparation wasn’t his favorite method of transportation, and he hadn’t had to Side-along since before he got his license. He felt squeezed into a too-tight wind tunnel, the headache behind his eyes suddenly feeling as if it were trying to burrow its way all the way to the back of his skin and pop his eyes out, to boot.

The sun was setting behind St. Augustine’s when they all stumbled to a stop. The building was old and sprawling, with long wings on either side that formed a U-shape around a courtyard. Draco imagined that they didn’t have to worry too hard about Muggles stumbling upon it-- all around them were forests of trees and steep ravines, and the outside of the hospital looked, even to Draco, desolate and abandoned. The Aurors’ worries hadn’t been entirely unfounded-- he caught sight of Potter waving away one of the wizard’s from getting too good a look at his sliced open bicep, the section that had been missing seeming a touch bigger.

Draco felt like he was moving through water as he followed their little caravan through the wrought-iron gates and up to the hospital. One of the Aurors tapped his wand against the rotting door; when he opened it to allow them to pass through, Draco was met with the sight of bright, stark white walls and squeaky, linoleum floors. It smelled like cleaning spells and a bit like smoke. The robes that the Healers wore here were baby blue, instead of lime green, and they bustled about, skittering from one side of the massive waiting room to the next, up the stair cases on either side of the reception desk, and through double doors on wall.

“Oh, darling, that’s a nasty one,” the receptionist witch behind the counter tsked. “Got it in ya to walk? First floor, to the left through those double doors. It’ll take ya right to  _ Apparation and Disapparation Splinching and Injuries _ .”

Draco’s head was spinning by the time Potter was swept away by a Healer into another room, leaving him with Yasmin and the two Aurors. He sank into a chair in the hall, pressing his palms against the sockets of his eyes and digging them hard into the bone. He felt Yasmin sit beside him-- could smell her shampoo --and resisted the urge to shrug her small hand off his shoulder. Everything felt like too much, just now. He was so  _ tired  _ and he couldn’t stop imagining what that look Potter had given him could possibly mean. So significant in its weight, yet so devoid of meaning that Draco could parse apart. He wanted to know what had happened, where Potter had gone.

“Hey,” Yasmin whispered. She pulled his hands away from his face and Draco pitched forward a little, the only thing holding his head up having been his elbows on his knees. “Oh, for the love of-- Healer!”

“No,” Draco snapped, forcing himself upright. There were two of Yasmin and he blinked furiously. “No, I’m fine.”

“Ma’am, he hasn’t slept,” Yasmin said, talking over Draco’s head to a Healer who had come to her call. “He’s about to fall out.”

“ _ No _ ,” Draco insisted. But in the end, he let Yasmin and the Healer witch bully him up off the seat and down the hall into another room. Humiliation burned hot down his throat and into his stomach. He  _ hated _ this. He scowled at Yasmin the entire time he was shoved into a bed and given a potion. (“It’ll help, sweetie, just have a taste,” the Healer witch said calmly.) It tasted bitter and he nearly spat it up after choking it down. It took only a minute before his vision went cloudy and the blessed relief of sleep to come over him, Yasmin’s worried face disappearing into the blackness that swallowed up his peripheral.

Awakening, the room was dim. The light from the windows was low and orange, casting long shafts of light through the glass and orange encased shadows. His head was splitting. The minute he began to sit up, the Healer witch swept down on him and pressed her small hands against his shoulders to keep him flat on the bed.

“You’re going to feel a bit woozy after that, sweetie,” the Healer said softly. She was right. Draco felt his stomach flip over as the sleep drought cleared from his head. The Healer helped him slowly sit up against the pillows before offering him a glass of water. Until Draco began swallowing it down in large gulps, he hadn’t noticed that his throat felt scratchy and parched. There were other beds in the room, but the curtains were mostly drawn for privacy. Yasmin was gone; it was just himself and the medi-witch, watching to make sure he drank the last drop of the water before setting the glass on the bedside table.

“Your friend is with Mr. Potter,” the Healer informed him. “When you’re feeling like you can walk, I can take you there.”

Draco tried not to let the pure rush of shame disarm him. He  _ hadn’t _ slept, and he was sure without the potion’s help he might not have done so until his body had entirely given up on him. It took him a while before he did feel capable of standing. He let himself go slowly so that he might not need the humiliation of leaning on the Healer, who only came up to his elbow.

Potter was in a room down the hall. When the Healer led him in, the first thing Draco heard was Yasmin’s inelegant laughter and Potter’s soft, deep chuckle. Potter was sitting up in his own bed, his arm a little mismatch of skin-- the chunk missing from his arm had been replaced, but the skin stretched over it was a shade too light. It looked like a puzzle that had been put together incorrectly.  When Draco entered, Potter lifted his gaze and Yasmin gasped, leaping up from her seat.

“Thought you were never going to wake up,” Yasmin said, guiding him to sit where she had been sitting right at Potter’s bedside. She took up residence on the edge of Potter’s bed instead, tucking one knee up beneath her on the mattress. Something unpleasant roiled in Draco’s stomach at the sight, but he chalked it up to the sleeping drought still working its way through his system.

“How are you feeling?” Potter asked, perfectly pleasant.

Draco squinted through the sunset-light coming in through Potter’s window. “I should be asking you that,” Draco said. “Your arm is mismatched.”

Potter flexed his bicep with a soft laugh. “Yeah, normally they’d just stick the pieces back together but mine got lost. They’re growing it back. Skin should even out eventually, they said. They gave me a paint potion, too. I can’t feel a thing. I’m happy has a pig in mud.”

“What happened?” Draco asked, almost far too fervently. “Where were you?”

“He won’t say a word!” Yasmin said, laughing. “I’ve been trying for hours.”

“I didn’t want to repeat myself!” Potter laughed, too.

They were bantering. It did something to Draco. He felt as he did sat at the bar with them, with Potter making obvious eyes over their drinks and chips. A sudden outsider looking in on some type of human interaction that he didn’t entirely understand, one that he had been denied by the nature of his upbringing. Molded and trained to shun anything deeper than shallow admiration for his family name, his money, his perceived power. Something carved out inside his chest and left him feeling hollow.

“Besides,” Potter went on, looking at Draco now. “I wanted to show you.”

Brows furrowed, Draco said nothing. Potter pointed to the bedside table where a wide, shallow bowl of water sat, a damp flannel folded over the side. “Hand me that.”

Draco did. He handed Potter his wand that lay beside it, too, already guessing what Potter might be doing. The bowl made the perfect makeshift pensive. Potter need only whisper an incantation and swirl the tip of his wand through the cool water before it turned misty-silver, awaiting a memory to be placed into it. The thought of going into Potter’s memory only made Draco all the more queasy. When he glanced at Yasmin, she looked apprehensive, too. He wondered if she didn’t really want to know, after all, what had happened to him.

Potter pulled a memory from his temple with the tip of his wand. It dragged through the air, its tail curling around itself before Potter deposited into the bowl.

“Ready?” Potter asked.

Draco wasn’t. “Yes,” he replied.

“I guess,” Yasmin whispered.

Draco went first. He pulled his chair to the edge of Potter’s bed and bent over his lap to dunk his face into the memory. He’d only been in a pensive once or twice, under the direction of Severus Snape. The feeling was unpleasant, and he felt his body tip inward and through the cool water, drawing him into Potter’s memory. He landed unpleasantly on a cracked, old floor, half-torn walls letting in the barest hints of morning light. He wasn’t alone. Yasmin thudded at his side; before them, strewn on the floor lay Potter, damp with sweat and pawing at his arm where the chunk of his bicep was now missing. Heaving on the floor not far from where Potter had evidently landed was the boy.

And a boy he was. Hood removed now, Draco could see a pale face with big, blue eyes and messy blond hair. There were bruises under his eyes from what looked like lack of sleep. He stared at Potter with eyes so wild and terrified that Draco could practically feel the terror emanating from him. Beside him, Yasmin took his hand and Draco, feeling more charitable towards her now that it was just the two of them, let her.

“Don’t,” Potter on the floor said, heaving himself to his knees and pointing his wand at the boy, who had dropped his about a meter away in the commotion of apparating away with unwanted baggage. Potter looked rough, and his arm was starting to ooze unpleasantly. Draco could see the minute Potter realized that he was facing down a teeanger, and the conviction of his wand hand wavered.

“How old are you?” Potter asked.

“Seventeen!” The boy practically shouted. “And you’d best quit snooping around or I’ll--”

“You’ll…?” Potter interrupted.  “You’ll what? Curse me? Like you cursed those Muggles? Who else is in on this?”

“I ain’t--” The boy’s face turned red and he eyed his wand. Potter forced himself to his feet and held his wand more steadily so that he kept the boy’s attention.

“I ain’t cursed nobody,” the boy said. “But they’ll get you, too.”

“Who?” Potter urged. “Who’s doing this?”

The boy looked more terrified than Draco thought possible facing down an injured man. But perhaps that was the nature of children. He hated looking at the boy, hated seeing his face grow pinker and pinker as he trembled there on the floor, casting furtive glances at his wand. Beside him, Yasmin squeezed his hand. Draco squeezed back.

“I’m not tellin’,” the boy breathed. “I’m not, and you’ll just-- you’ll just have to kill me, cause I ain’t-- I ain’t--”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Potter said in a voice so calm that Draco couldn’t fathom what was going through his head. He wished he could tell Potter in the memory what he knew about the boy and the blood, but he was forced to simply sit by and watch instead.

“Who is it, that you know?” Potter asked instead. “That’s part of these curses? Your mother? Father, maybe?”

The boy’s eyes squeezed shut a moment. Potter exhaled. “Yeah,” he said, softly. “Yeah. I know. You don’t have to do this. Whatever your father’s said--”

“He said that the Dark Lord had been right!” The boy was back to shouting, as if he could drown out reason and cognitive dissonance with the sound of his voice. Draco could remember trying to do the same thing up on the astronomy tower. He felt weak-stomached all over again and he held his breath to try and stop the rush of nausea that followed.

“He was wrong,” Potter said firmly. “Your father and Voldemort, too. He was wrong and he died wrong.”

Silence stretched through the memory. Draco’s ears felt clogged with water. He wondered if the pain in Potter’s arm was distorting the memory, if he had been having trouble concentrating on the task at hand. He looked drenched with sweat and his wand hand quivered.

“I don’t care,” the boy said, suddenly. “I just want you to leave well enough alone.”

“I can’t,” Potter insisted. “You know I can’t do that. If you didn’t cast any of the curses, then you don’t have anything to be afraid of. I can help you.”

“The hell you can!” The boy dove for his wand and Potter shouted, “ _ Expelliarmus! _ ”, knocking the wand away. He moved to stand between the boy and his wand, wincing, the collar of his tee-shirt starting to dampen. Draco wanted to shake him but all he could do was watch, helpless, as Potter tried to reason with a teenager, scared enough of his father to do horrible things to himself.

“I have a friend,” Potter said, his breathing going harder now. His other arm was limp at his side, his muscles just Splinched out of his body. “You kind of remind me of him, a bit. He was like you when he was seventeen. He did things that he thought he should, because his father told him to.”

The blood drained from Draco’s face. He clenched Yasmin’s hand tighter and she looked up at him in his peripheral.

“He thought Voldemort was right, too, because his father said he was,” Potter said, panting heavily now. “And he protected him because he didn’t know what else to do. He was on the wrong side. He did things he couldn’t take back.”

The boy’s expression flickered, eyes darting over Potter’s face. He kept trying to glance for his wand, as if to see a way out of this with his dignity.  Draco knew from experience that it was a slim chance. “What happened to him?” the boy asked, softly.

“He came around,” Potter said. “Eventually. After doing terrible things. Protecting people he shouldn’t. Hurting people. Almost—” Potter paused. His voice sounded choked. Draco wanted to wrench away from it all. “—Almost killing someone.”

The boy’s face turned more vibrant shades of scarlet. “So he was weak,” the boy spat.

“Doing the right thing isn’t weak,” Potter said. His voice just kept getting softer and softer. Draco stepped closer to hear him, slipping his hand from Yasmin’s. He stood right next to Potter in the memory, wishing he could touch him, urge him to come back sooner than he did. “He sat trial and testified against very powerful men who would have seen him dead. Against his father. He admitted he was wrong and he tried to make it right. That’s strength.”

Draco wanted the earth to swallow him whole. Hearing Potter speak of him like this made all that uncomfortable dizziness come back in way that he couldn’t pinpoint.

“You can, too,” Potter urged. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to protect him.”

Draco closed his eyes. He could feel it, in the memory. Shimmering under the surface of what was happening in front of him. Potter’s thoughts, like mist, descending on every part of him. He was sure Yasmin could feel it too, and that idea was unbearable.  _ Please, Draco _ . He could hear it, a whisper, so strong that it permeated the memory that Potter was showing him.  _ Please, choose differently _ .

“It’s not me,” Draco said aloud. “Its not.”

“What?” Yasmin, from behind him.

“It’s--” Draco swallowed. “Nothing. Sorry.”

The boy began talking over them. “You don’t know shit,” he shouted. “Not a damn thing.  _ Accio! _ ” His wand flew from the floor back to his hand. “You should have just left it alone. I tried to scare you off but you just keep bein’ nosy.”

“That was good,” Potter said, holding his wand aloft now, forcing his hand steady. “A good trick. It got to us a bit, you know. So how did you do it? How’d you know where we were going to be?”

The boy flushed. “They gave you one of them maps, ain’t they?” The boy asked. When Potter nodded stiffly, the boy barked a short, mirthless laugh. “Yeah. You can duplicate them if you know how. Stole one of ‘em from my dad’s office. Easy as anything.”

“How’d you get there before we did?” Potter pressed. He was stalling, Draco could feel it. Waiting to catch the kid off guard, maybe, to disarm him again. Potter’s sun-brown face was going ashy, though. That Splinch would have been hurting bad, now.

“Been there, before,” the boy says, voice going a little weak. “When it happened.”

Draco couldn’t watch anymore of this, but he was certainly trapped in the makeshift pensive, an unwilling voyeur to Potter’s desperate attempts at saving an already lost soul.

“What’s your name?” Potter asked.

“Peter,” the boy answered.

“Peter.” Potter was wavering on his feet. “Peter. You can come with me, Peter. We can go back. You can tell the Aurors everything you know. You can stop this. People are being hurt. They’re dying.”

“I  _ can’t _ !” Peter screamed. Draco saw Potter straightening his wand, opening his mouth to disarm him again, when Peter took his chance. The air crackled and the loud  _ crack! _ of disapparation stung Draco’s ears, even secondhand. The memory began to cloud over, and before Draco knew it, he was wrenching his head back up and out of the cool water of the bowl, gasping, feeling dizzy and nauseous.

Yasmin didn’t look as beat up by the ordeal as Draco felt, and he tried to just sit up and not look like all the blood had rushed out of his face to pump furiously through his chest.

“That’s good, right?” Yasmin said softly. “They just have to figure out who has a son named Peter. Should be easy. It’s all on record with the Bureau, all that stuff.”

“You were gone all day,” Draco said, frowning. “That couldn’t have taken longer than a half hour. What happened?”

“Well, I’d had my arm Splinched in half, didn’t I?” Potter snapped. He looked embarrassed. “I couldn’t get it in me to Apparate.”

“Oh, would you knock it off,” Yasmin hissed, hopping off the bed. “I’m going to get Jones and Tanner.”

The door knocked closed behind her. The silence felt unbearable. Draco looked at Potter and found him staring at him with that same look from the inn, intense in a way that Draco couldn’t pinpoint. He swallowed thickly and moved to bowl back to the bedside table after Potter returned the memory from the water into his temple.

“You said an awful lot of nice things about me,” Draco said.

“They were true,” Potter replied. It made Draco’s stomach twist again. He pressed his hands against his lap and looked elsewhere.

“You couldn’t have changed my mind, back then,” Draco said, gathering his courage and lifting his face to look at Potter, who stared at him,  _ still _ . “There’s nothing you could have done differently, back then.”

“You caught that, eh?” Potter said, finally looking away. He looked… Draco couldn’t place it. Abashed? Draco felt the overwhelming need to reach out and touch his hand. He resisted, if only because he didn’t know where the urge to do so was coming from. He had to assume that the shock of being left without his Auror partner and the sleep drought was making him have disconnected thoughts. It was the only explanation as to why he was, just then, thinking of the way he had awoken in Lilith's Junction with Potter’s arm wrapped warmly around his middle.

Rather than insulting Potter’s dignity any further by forcing the topic to continue, Draco didn’t reply. He cleared his throat and craned his neck towards the door, but Yasmin wasn’t coming back yet. Presumably, she would be telling the Aurors everything that Potter had shown them. Perhaps, this whole thing would be over far sooner than Draco had even anticipated. They had a counter-curse, they had a name, they could very well be going home.  _ Back to not thinking about one another again. _ It made Draco’s stomach flip over itself. The sleep drought must have really gotten to him. He couldn’t remember having such a strong reaction (and he had taken his fair share of dreamless sleep after the war).

“You found a counter-curse, you said?” Potter went on, instead, breaking the silence. Draco sucked in a deep breath and nodded. That was a topic that he could focus on.

“ _ Intermissium _ . Fits all of the criteria. Granger and Yasmin helped. I would have been on my arse if it weren’t for them.” Draco allowed a creaky smile to flash across his lips. They felt cracked and chapped. He was starving now and he was greatly considering drinking the water in Potter’s makeshift pensieve.

Potter chuckled, leaning back against his pillows. “I’ll be sure to let Hermione know.”

“When can you leave?” Draco pressed. “We could start taking the curses down.”

“Any minute,” Potter said, patting the new skin on his arm. “Just need a Healer to OK my discharge. Shouldn’t be doing any heavy lifting, though.” Still with the teasing.

“Do you think he’ll come around? Peter?” Draco asked. “Before the Aurors get at him.”

Potter looked at him and their gaze met. Draco was, once more, incapable of looking away. He twisted his fingers together in his lap, nails biting into his knuckles. Potter said nothing for a short while, as if his answer required that Draco squirm a bit before he could bestow it.

“Yeah,” Potter said, at least. “I think he will.”

Neither of them would admit that they each knew that Potter was not speaking of Peter at all.

 


	4. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to Julia for all of their hard work in editing this chapter and keeping me from getting discouraged during the writing process! I'm sorry this took so long, but the story wasn't done being told, which means there's a fifth and final chapter being written and on the way. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has commented and come along this story with me! It's been so fun and I can't wait to finish this story with you all.

I.

The inn stood in front of them as they had left it. Facing it again with Yasmin on his right and Potter on his left felt only natural. Draco twitched his wand between his fingers, chewing on his bottom lip. It was almost over, in a way. They could remove the curses and, hopefully, that would, too, reverse the magic that plagued the Muggles still stuck in St. Augustine’s. Waiting for relief, waiting to be oblivated and returned to their normal, quiet, Muggle lives.

“Ready?” Yasmin asked. Draco looked down at her, and she looked tired, but she smiled up at him. It felt easy to return it now, and he nodded firmly.

“Yes.” 

They walked together up the path, but Draco was the first to enter through the door. The foyer was just as he had left it, dark again as the sun sank once more beyond the horizon. After they were done here, he and Potter would get in the car and make their way down the list and, hopefully, remove the curses one by one. If it worked, then Yeltz would get in contact with the other overseers of the operation and  _ Intermissium _ would work for the rest of the Aurors and Curse-breakers who had come over from the Ministry. 

It felt too easy.

“ _ Intermissium! _ ” 

Draco gave a wave of his wand and he could feel the magic flowing in an endless loop between the smooth wood and his fingertips. The hair on the back of his neck prickled unpleasantly. He could feel the magic embedded into the boards of the inn, could almost feel it’s animosity at being ordered to retreat, to curl in on itself and die. Draco almost expected a fight. He almost expect that, for all the trouble it had caused, that the curse would stay, taunting him. But in the end, even powerful magic could not defy the laws in which it was created. 

It was over, in just a few long heartbeats. As quick as it took to light his wand, or fill a glass with water, or fix a plate, or heal a bruise. 

“It’s done?” Potter asked, suddenly quite close over his shoulder. Draco exhaled a nervous laugh. It  _ was _ done. He could feel nothing but the wards now, clinging to his skin like film. But that was familiar and warm and safe.

“Yes,” Draco said.

In the same breath, Draco was nearly knocked off his feet as Potter whooped and laughed and wrapped his arms around him in a crushing hug. Draco gagged and shoved his hands against Potter’s chest, careful not to jostle his still healing arm too much. “You did it!” Potter practically shouted in his ear. Draco could hear Yasmin laughing, too, and something strange and unnerving uncurled in his chest and sunk like the warmth of a fire into every one of his limbs. He grunted as Yasmin threw herself at them, too, her small arms trying their best to wrap around them both. They all jostled and rocked on their feet until Draco managed to peel himself away with a deep breath.

“Enough, already!” He said, pushing his hair off his face. “It wasn’t just me. You helped.” He gestured to Yasmin. “And without Granger I think we both would have been lost.”

“You found the book in the first place,” Potter said, grinning. “You had the idea. Come on, Draco. I never knew you to be modest.”

Cheeks pink, Draco lifted his chin just a little more. “Well,” he said. “I suppose I did.”

Yasmin laughed loudly. The sound was warm in Draco’s sternum. His stomach had settled from the sleep drought and he felt brighter and better than ever. His limbs felt loose and his mind sharp. This was, in fact, possible. It was more than possible, though Draco’s thoughts zoomed too quickly about his head to settle on an appropriate adjective. The only thing that punctured his sudden jubilation was the thought of Peter. Where was the boy now? Was he still watching them on his copy-cat map? Or had he disappeared to warn his father, to give him a head start? Draco could remember the wrath he faced from his father when he did something displeasing. Would Peter face some of the same? Was Lucius a breed that crossed continents, or had his father’s abuse been strictly unique to the Malfoy blood?

Draco felt his warmth start to sap. He forced himself not to linger on those thoughts. Instead, he worked to help Yasmin and Potter restore the inn back to its original state. The wards were removed, and it was ready to reappear to the minds of the Muggles, the staff ready to return to it, the world around it ready to continue moving on as if it had not been touched by such darkness at all. 

They parted with Yasmin at the end of the walkway. It was a long and lingering goodbye, something that Draco had not experienced much in his life. She had a Muggle phone, too, one that stayed in her home (“A house phone,” she said, casually) and she programmed her number into both of their phones. The gesture made Draco’s throat tighten up and he said nothing as she hugged them both in turn, having to pull them down by the neck to reach for a proper embrace.

When she apparated-- after getting teary-eyed and demanding they promise to call her the minute they got to their next hotel --Draco found himself alone with Potter again. His heart began to pound strangely against his ribs. They stood together in silence for a minute, just watching the darkening sky engulf the horizon.

“Well,” Potter said, breaking the quiet. “Shall we?”

They got in the car and after all the commotion and apparating and side-alongs, it felt nice to just sit still and let the car move them. The map lead them, quite cheerily, to another roadside motel. By then, darkness had swallowed the sky in its entirety. Out of the city limits, the stars beamed prettily down from the inky black above. The night air was sticky and hot, but Draco preferred the windows down to the chilly, artificial air from the dashboard. 

When they checked into the room, Draco was perturbed to find once more they were met with a single queen-size bed. This time, though, there was no couch to pretend to argue over. Neither of them felt particularly tired, though-- Harry, wired from their success, and Draco, still awake from having slept the afternoon away in the hospital. There was a strange, grey box on top of the dresser facing the bed. It had been in the other rooms they had stayed in, too, but had otherwise remained a mystery to Draco.

To pass the time until they could sleep, Potter grabbed a little rectangle with buttons on it and pointed it at the grey box. It sprang to light with color and noise; Draco squinted at the screen, surprised to find people moving across it the way magical photographs might do, except they were in color, and the scene changed quite frequently to show different angles.

“What is this?” Draco asked, dropping to sit on the edge of the bed. Potter threw himself down and made himself comfortable against the pillows. 

“It’s a television,” Potter said. “Muggles watch it for fun, or to hear about the news.”

“Don’t you have papers?” Draco asked, scooting back to settle himself along the headboard as well. Potter spilled over the sheets, relaxed and languid. Draco felt pinstraight in comparison. 

“Sure,” Potter laughed. “But this is easier. More fun. It’s not all news. There’s shows. Like theatre, but it’s on the screen.”

The muggles on the screen didn’t look very entertaining. One was crying. “It’s fake?” Draco asked.

“Some of it,” Potter replied.

“How can you tell the difference?”

“You just kind of know,” Potter said, laughing a little-- it would have prickled Draco, if he hadn’t come to know the difference in nuance of Potter’s laughter. He wasn’t being laughed  _ at _ , per se, though he certainly wasn’t joining in, either. 

Potter clicked the rectangle (“The remote,” Potter said.) so that the pictures on the screen changed. Some were in black and white, with wailing women and men who spoke through their nostrils. Others, most of them, were in color. Potter pointed out which ones were theatre and which ones were real people. There were others, too, like drawings that moved. Those were easier, so drastically and obviously fake that Draco didn’t have to worry about whether what he was seeing was real or not.

They settled on one of those black and white shows (fake, Draco had confirmed). There was manufactured laughter in the background to let the viewer know when something was supposed to be a joke. Draco didn’t quite understand it, but he supposed it must be a muggle thing. It was nice just to have noise fill the space between them so that they might not have to worry about trying to fill it themselves. The silence had become comfortable, the way it was in the car sometimes.

After a while, Draco turned his head to say something to Potter only to find he had finally dropped off to sleep, the weight of the day having taken its toll. In sleep, Potter was still enough that Draco could look at him in a way he couldn’t bring himself to do during his waking hours. Like back in Lilith’s Junction, Draco found himself enamored with the way Potter’s face was slack and relaxed, devoid of the tension in his forehead and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. 

He still wore those awful glasses. It didn’t look as if he had changed the style of them since their school days- black, wire and round, they sat askew now as Potter’s head had tipped to the side, cheek against the pillow. Draco allowed himself to slide down the headboard until he was laying on his side, facing inward towards Potter. He reached carefully and pulled the glasses from his face. He folded them and placed them on the bed between them. Draco allowed himself some time to just  _ stare _ , which he would analyze about himself at a later date.

Potter’s breathing came slow and heavy. Draco matched his own, sucking in a slow, deep breath and letting it out in soft puffs through his nose. In the background, the Muggle television kept playing, the volume low, making a pleasant white noise. It made Draco wonder if Potter owned a television in his home in London-- did he even live in London, or had he settled in the countryside, apparating to work each morning? It struck Draco as strange that they had lived in one another’s pockets for the past week and knew very little of one another. 

Draco tried to imagine a life for Potter. It would be full of friends, certainly. Of Granger and Weasley and whoever Potter worked with as his regular Auror partner. It would be the Weasley girl, too, most likely. Hadn’t they been snogging each others faces off during their time at school? Draco couldn’t remember and just thinking about it made him feel ill for a reason he couldn’t place. Perhaps Potter was snogging her, still. He tried to imagine Potter in a life that was carefree and full of nights out at the pub and dinner with friends and Christmas with a family.

It only served to remind Draco most strongly of the things that he did not have-- the things that he didn’t allow himself to have. He often tried to tell himself that it wasn’t his fault, that his name carried a weight that many did not want to associate with. 

Though, he supposed, he could return Pansy’s owl once in a while. 

Draco sat up slowly so as not to jostle Potter awake and got himself ready for bed. He supposed he could wake him and tell him to get out of his jeans, at least, but he was worried the way he had taken such liberty looking at him would be written all his own face. The hotel shower was prickly and tepid, but it felt so good to wash away all the day’s anxieties that he spent a long time under the stream until his skin felt rubbed raw. He dried himself with a quick charm and left his hair down as he stepped back into the main room.

He found Potter sitting up, putting his glasses on, the collar of his shirt dampening with sweat all over again. Draco’s stomach dropped. “What’s wrong?” he asked, approaching the side of the bed slowly.

“Just the Splinch,” Potter replied, wincing a little. “The pain potion they gave me must have worn off.”

“Oh.” Draco sat on the edge of the bed. “I can get you a flannel. You’re sweating.”

“Thanks.”

Draco went to the bathroom and took one of the scratchy hotel washcloths and ran it under warm water. He wrung it out and folded it before returning to the bed. Potter was trying to get himself comfortable, careful not to do much with his Splinched arm. Draco returned to the bed and lay the washcloth over his forehead, the way Mother used to do for him when he was a child and sick with the sweats. Potter laughed a little, but accepted the treatment. 

“Does it hurt badly?” Draco asked. “I’ve never been Splinched.”

“Stings a bit,” Potter said, lips curling up. Teasing. He was teasing. Draco allowed it to feel good.

“Well, if I’d known you were going to get yourself all cut up I would have brought some supplies with me,” Draco said. Potter laughed again, sinking back into the sheets.

“It’ll wear off,” Potter said. 

Draco didn’t know what to say. Potter closed his eyes again and just sort of lay there on the bed. His breathing wasn’t as steady now, his face pinched in discomfort. Draco tried to remember all the things Mother would do for him when he wasn’t feeling well, but it felt strange to try and impart them onto Potter. So he sat up instead, his shoulders taught and his eyes unable to peel themselves permanently from Potter in case he were to decide to fall apart from the Splinching all over again. 

Finally, though, Potter settled again. He began to doze off again, still a little sweaty but seeming to sleep it off. Draco tucked himself onto the opposite side of the bed, body facing inward. The television still droned on, the occasionally faked overlay of laughter rising and falling from the screen. It became somewhat like white noise, making it easy to drop off to a light, warm sleep. 

His dreams were disjointed. He kept waking at each shuffle and shift from Potter beside him. Once he awoke with his entire side pressed warmly against Potter’s own, and he lay there for a long moment, just breathing and feeling Potter breathe beside him before he allowed his eyes to close and his body to drop back into sleep. It happened a few more times, too-- this waking, almost startled out of his body for a short moment before ascertaining that Potter hadn’t melted into sweat in his sleep.

He dreamed in black and white, like the Muggle show that Potter had put on for them to watch before sleep. He had no scar in his dream and he showed off his forearms in the hot, beating sun outside of a quaint house with a white fence, surrounded by a quiet, uniform neighborhood where all the houses looked quite the same. In the dream, it felt as if Potter were just out of his peripheral and that whenever Draco turned to look, he was yet again gone.

Draco awoke several more times before he could see the grey light outside of the motel windows and hear the ever-increasing traffic on the road beyond. Potter had once more found himself entwined around Draco. His good arm was tucked over the expanse of Draco’s back where he lay, belly down, cheek pressed inelegantly into the pillows. Their faces were so close that Draco could feel the soft puff of air through Potter’s parted lips against the apples of his cheeks. 

He ought to move him as he had done the previous time. He ought to slip out from Potter’s arm and make his excuses. The warmth of Potter’s arm and the way Draco’s calf was tucked up along Potter’s thigh was no reason to stay nestled under the blankets and in the bed. And yet, there he stayed, just breathing.

Eventually, he felt Potter stir. Draco kept his eyes closed and feigned sleep himself. He could feel Potter’s body losing its softness, becoming alert. Draco kept his breathing slow and even, but he was afraid that Potter might be able to hear how loudly his heart roared in his chest and his blood shot like bullets through his ears.

Slowly, Draco felt Potter’s wide hand slide across his shoulder blades, along his back, warm through the cotton of his sleep-shirt. He could control his breathing, but not the way gooseflesh erupted over every part of his body at the sensation.

It was over in the same second it began. The bed dipped and Draco felt Potter leave it, felt the absence of where he had been in the leftover warmth of the sheets and the chill of the artificial air in the room invading his now abandoned side.

Draco counted to two minutes in his head before he started rustling about and pretending to wake up. The shower turned on in the bathroom. In an hour, the car was packed and ready to go. Neither of them spoke about it. Potter’s touch burned through Draco’s clothes all day.

II.

The work was easy now. They were left with little else to do but remove the curses after allowing the Bureau’s Aurors to follow the breadcrumbs of information that Potter had extracted from Peter. Yasmin kept in touch every night, calling with updates on the Muggles stuck in St. Augustine. Those afflicted still by the curse were healing once it had been removed from where they’d gotten it in the first place. Their memories were being modified and they were being returned to their lives as if nothing had happened. 

Draco almost couldn’t believe it, really. He felt as if he were constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop-- for something even more horrible to crop up, for the counter-curse to stop working. But they moved through the towns on their list, managing three a day for the first three days-- one after the other, ripping the curse from its mooring and banishing it to whatever realm magic came from in the first place. They visited everything from family homes to schoolhouses to alleyways behind busy city streets. The location of the curses had no rhyme nor reason. Which, Potter had said one night as they sipped coffee and drove through the witching hour to get to their next hotel, was almost unheard of when it came to organized Dark Wizards like this.

Perhaps that was what made the whole thing so unnerving. It didn’t matter who was being caught in the cross-hairs of the curses-- as long as Muggles were getting what the caster thought had coming to them. Draco could remember a time when his own thoughts weren’t dissimilar. He wished he could say it made him better suited to this job but it didn’t. It only filled him with a shame he couldn’t quite shake. 

Potter seemed to become looser with his camaraderie every day. Draco noticed it in the small things-- Potter’s hand guiding him by the elbow, or Potter packing his bag for him in the morning before they headed back out on the road. Draco wished that he could figure out what had changed and when, but even when he tried to probe his own memory, he could not pinpoint the exact moment that he had begun to refer to Potter (occasionally) as  _ Harry _ in his own head.

On the fourth night, Draco found himself faced with a slightly better hotel and room but only one bed. It was becoming less unnerving, and something in Draco thrilled to life at the thought of sleeping soundly next to a warm body again. The hotel had alcohol tucked inside a small, glass-doored cold box. Potter ordered them food from the hotel kitchens and they splurged with the Muggle money that Yeltz had given them to fund their work. Perhaps he didn’t have this in mind, but a few little bottles in, Draco wasn’t feeling too poorly about it.

Draco didn’t drink often-- Lilith’s Junction had been the first time in over a year. Not out of any moral reason, either. It was just that he had always been waifish, and firewhisky went right through him quite unpleasantly. Muggle alcohol was less strong and by the time they finished their food, Draco was feeling dizzy and delighted and knew that his cheeks must have been alcohol-pink.

Half-drunk, Potter couldn’t seem to stop talking. “Do you remember,” he said, picking at the last of his chips. “When you kicked me in the face in sixth year?”

Draco would prefer not to talk about when he was sixteen, but Potter was grinning at him in such a way that seemed to suggest that Draco breaking his nose with his foot was all water under the bridge, now. “I do,” Draco agreed. “That was the year you sliced me up like Christmas ham.”

Potter winced and then laughed, which made Draco laugh because it was such a ridiculous thought. “Did I say sorry about that?”

“It could bear repeating.”

“ _ Sorry _ ,” Potter intoned. “I thought I was going to go insane trying to figure out what you were up to.”

“And weren’t you subtle about it?” Draco drawled. It had the intended effect of making Potter laugh again. The drink made him feel quite brave, so Draco said, “Can I ask you something?”

“You’ve just done.”

“Something else, then.”

Potter grinned. “Go on.”

“That Weasley girl,” Draco said, leaning forward a bit where he was sat cross-legged in the center of the bed. Potter was leaned back against the headboard, all of the pillows tucked behind him, twirling one finger around the lip of his bottle. 

“Ginny,” Potter reminded him.

“Yes,” Draco agreed. “There were whispers.”

“Do the Malfoys concern themselves with gossip?”

“Oh,  _ most _ certainly. Giving others the impression that you’re the center of the gossip mill has its social advantages.” Draco took a long swig of his drink, until his bottle was empty. He tucked it in his lap before leaning forward again. “Is it happily ever after for you both?”

“Oh,” Potter laughed. “Oh. No. I mean… well, no. We’re great friends, me and Ginny. But it’s just not on.”

Draco wasn’t sure what he had been expecting as an answer, but it wasn’t that. “Why not?”

“Are  _ you _ still dating the same person you met in school? Parkinson?” Potter asked.

“Pansy and I never dated,” Draco said, perhaps far too quickly. The problem was that they  _ hadn’t _ and somehow Potter’s misinformation was making him queasy. But perhaps that was the alcohol. “She was just the only person who could stand me.”

Potter laughed loudly now, tossing his head back. He’d grown a fair bit of stubble along his face and it continued down his neck. “Then you’d understand if I said the same about Ginny.”

“It’s just that there was a war on,” Draco babbled, unable to stop himself. “And then I was on trial and house arrest and then nobody wanted anything to do with me.”

Potter frowned a bit, his brow creasing. “Okay?” He didn’t seem to follow. It made Draco wish he could scoop the words back up and shove them back down his throat.

“So my prospects,” Draco said. “Are nill.”

“Are we really talking about girl troubles?”

Draco managed to arrange his face into a pretty sturdy scowl. “Isn’t this what men do?” He asked. “Drink alcohol and talk about witches?”

“Oh-- Oh, come on--” Potter could barely speak while laughing now. “You’re not-- You’re not, are you? Not really.”

“I’m not what?” Draco asked, face screwing up for real this time. “What are you on about?”

“No-- nothing, nothing--” Potter was still laughing and no matter what Draco tried to get it out of him, he wouldn’t reveal what it was Draco  _ wasn’t _ , and what he found so amusing about it. They squabbled a bit before they cleared off the bed and settled down into the sheets. Potter turned the television on at Draco’s request. More expensive, this room’s little Muggle television box had more channels to browse through, but Draco made Potter stop again on the black and white shows. 

With the lights off, the only thing that illuminated the room was the glow of the television. It was bright and it changed the shadows in new ways. Draco tried to watch the television but his eyes were quickly growing cross-eyed, so he rolled himself inward and pressed his face against the pillows instead. Little lights shot off behind his eyes when he squeezed them tightly shut. 

“Potter,” he murmured, finally. He lifted his head a bit and squinted into the strange shadow-light of the room. Potter turned his head toward him, blinking sleepily across the space. Draco wondered if he had been just on the cusp of sleep.

“What did you mean?” Draco whispered. “When you said I  _ wasn’t _ ? What aren’t I?”

Potter’s brow creased a little. “You don’t want to talk about witches,” he said. His voice was soft and it rumbled in his throat. He turned toward Draco in the bed and it had the effect of putting their faces a breath width apart. There was a tiny scar on Potter’s nose. Draco wondered if he had got it from the kick to the face. 

“No,” Draco agreed quietly. “I thought you might.”

“I don’t want to talk about witches, either,” Potter murmured.

“Oh.” Draco squinted, pressing his lips together. That didn’t explain anything.

He let the silence stretch and Potter’s tired, drunk eyes began to close again. Draco gracelessly inched himself just an iota closer, so that perhaps he could catch him off guard. “What aren’t I?” he whispered.

“Draco,” Potter sighed. 

“ _ Harry _ .”

Potter’s eyes opened sharply, hastening to zero in on Draco’s face like a Niffler. The look made Draco’s stomach flip over itself and he hoped he wasn’t about to be sick in the bed. 

“Say it again,” Potter said, strangely.

“Why?” Draco asked. 

“Humor me.”

Draco did. “Harry.”

“Okay,” Potter said, but he didn’t seem to be talking to Draco at all. It had the tone of giving himself a pep-talk. “Okay. Alright. Okay.”

When Potter kissed him, Draco could feel the scratch of his stubble against his bottom lip and his cheek. Draco had been kissed plenty in his life, contrary to his abysmal dating life. He hadn’t really dated Pansy but she had practiced kissing on him until she thought she had gotten it mostly right and Draco hadn’t minded at the time, because he was fifteen and he figured that’s what he was supposed to do. Still, it took him a moment to realize in its entirety that he was, in fact, being kissed. 

Potter’s breath was warm on his mouth and stank of alcohol. Draco supposed he must have begun to kiss him back, though he struggled to recall how to get all the moving parts in coordination. Potter’s stubble began to chafe against his skin. It was almost pleasant. When Draco figured out how to kiss him back, he felt the kiss in every pore of his skin. It moved slowly, this kiss, from one passing slide of lips to the next. Draco breathed loud and rasping through his nose; he could feel Potter doing the same, breath puffing against his cheeks.

It felt like an appropriate accumulation. The unsettled feeling in his stomach made sense now, doused as it was by the way Harry slid one broad hand against his jaw to hold him in place while he pressed the softest of kisses against the corners of his mouth. 

“You’re aren’t  _ straight _ ,” Harry finally answered. Draco closed his eyes as Harry’s lips passed over his eyelids. 

_ Oh _ . “I guess not,” Draco agreed. “I never put much thought into it.”

Harry drew back a little, but when Draco opened his eyes to look at him, he was still close enough for them to nudge their noses together. So he did. Harry kissed him there, too. Harry’s hand dropped from his jaw to the soft curve of his neck and just rested there, his fingers getting all tangled up in Draco’s loose hair.

“What do you mean you’ve never thought about it?” Harry asked, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.

“Pureblood wizards marry pureblood witches and have pureblood babies,” Draco said, his voice quite like he was telling a secret. “I figured I would do the same.”

“Do you think you still might?” Harry asked. Something changed in his voice. It sounded guarded. Draco wanted to rip the assumption apart with his bare hands.

“The power of the Malfoy line ending with me is an intoxicating idea. I only wish Father were alive to lord it over.” 

Harry laughed this time, the tense lines of his face evaporating as quickly as they had come. He drew Draco in again and he was prepared to be kissed this time. It went much smoother and all the nerve endings under his skin lit up like neverending-firecrackers. It was different than kissing Pansy by miles. He wondered what all this kissing said about Harry. Emboldened by Harry’s hand sliding smoothly over the yolk of his shoulder, Draco drew back from his lips to speak.

“Is this why you’re not going with the Weasley girl?” He asked.

“Sort of,” Harry said, distractedly. He was still trying to kiss him. Draco ducked his head and Harry’s lips pressed against the knot of his brow instead. “She lost interest in me.”

“Oh,” Draco said. He felt better about that, somehow. 

“Mhm,” Harry hummed. They were kissing again and Draco let it happen.

He had a distinct feeling that he was supposed to be feeling something more. Something grand, something explosive-- he was supposed to be doing something like falling madly, stunningly in love, maybe. But all he felt was a quiet and delighted satisfaction:  _ Yes, of course. This is the only natural culmination of events _ .  _ It would have been a default in the universe had Potter not kissed me just when he did.  _

They kissed until Draco’s lips felt dry and his eyes felt too sodden with alcohol to keep open. He drifted to sleep with one of Harry’s arms wound around his back, deliberately, and his face pressed into the crook of one elbow. It wasn’t comfortable but it was warm and his skin prickled with the knowledge that when they awoke, the world would be forever changed in the smallest of ways. 

In the morning, they exchanged slow, hung-over kisses. It was the first thing Harry did to rouse him. They laid together in the warm, quiet of the hotel room, the blankets pulled up to their shoulders, breath coming in hot little puffs against each other's skin. Draco didn’t even mind that it took them an hour to drag themselves out of bed and get ready to leave the hotel room. They had a long day ahead of them, with plans to hit three more towns today before retiring.

Draco supposed they ought to talk about the kissing. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to think about how they would  _ go back to not thinking of one another _ when they got home and in what realm of his mind he would stow away the kisses to rot and fester until it turned into something ugly and harsh. 

Their hotel room was  _ inside _ the actual building, this time. But when they made their way out to the car park, there was a hunched figure leaning against the front of the car. The soft atmosphere from the hotel room fell away. Potter stiffened, too, at the sight and they both hovered several meters away. Draco didn’t need to see the flash of blond hair beneath the drawn hood of his Muggle sweatshirt to know who it was.

“Peter,” Potter said calmly, taking a few slow steps forward. Draco watched from the corner of his eye as he touched the end of his wand in his back pocket. 

Peter looked up. His face was sallow, sleep-less bruises under his eyes making the sockets look sunken. His blue eyes darted frantically from Draco’s face to Potter’s. Draco could tell that he was gripping his wand tightly in the pocket of his sweatshirt. Draco touched his own wand. He didn’t think the Bureau would thank them for a wand fight in the middle of a Muggle car park.

“What are you doing here?” Potter asked. His voice was light, casual. Draco wanted to grab the little prat in a headlock and keep him there until the Aurors arrived. He didn’t move though, opting to let Potter give his way a shot first before he stupefied the brat. 

“Thought about what you said.” Peter’s voice was quiet, catching on the breeze. Potter stepped forward again, putting a shorter and shorter distance between them. Draco slipped his wand from his pocket to the inside of his sleeve.  _ Protego _ was on his lips. 

“Yeah?” Potter asked. “Come to a conclusion?”

Peter’s expression crumbled in a way that was all too familiar. It stung Draco’s chest harder than any curse. He found it almost impossible to breathe. He was certain he must be doing a great impression of a death rattle as he forced himself to keep sucking air into his lungs. His vision felt like it was about to tunnel. But his eyes stayed trained on Peter’s crumbling face, a look of defeat, of regret, of unmoored uncertainty so familiar that it clawed at Draco’s throat and tightened like a noose. 

“Yeah,” Peter said. His voice was froggy. “The Bureau’s been pokin’ around, but Dad ain’t dumb. They never gonna find nothin’ to pin it on him.”

“I’ll give them my memory,” Potter said, frowning. 

“He’ll pin it on me,” Peter begged. “It’ll be me takin’ the fall for it. He ain’t above it, either. He’ll sell ‘em all out if he gets half the chance. Me, too.”

“So you do it first,” Draco said. Peter’s eyes snapped to him and Potter looked over his shoulder, expression unreadable. Draco crossed the distance more bravely than he felt, wand ready to slip down from inside his sleeve. “Sell him out first.”

Peter looked pained at the very notion. Draco could understand. The burning hatred for his father could never have contended with familial loyalty, even at the end. 

“I wish I did,” Draco said. “My father was a Death Eater. One of the originals, too. From the First Wizarding War to the second. When I was sixteen, all I had to do was tell one person and maybe things would have been different. Maybe not much. You know, probably wouldn’t have stopped the war or anything. But it would have made a difference to the people he hurt.” Draco swallowed thickly. “It might have saved at least one person.”

It felt as if Potter’s gaze was burning through the side of his face. Draco kept his attention on Peter, muscles ready to jump into position to defend himself if need be. But no attack ever came, physical, magical or verbal. Peter’s expression tightened up again, then fell soundly apart, his face growing pink as unsavory wetness welled and fell in fat streaks down his cheeks. Draco turned away. He couldn’t bear it.

“Let us call the Aurors,” Potter said, stepping forward. Draco allowed himself to fall back, face turned towards the cloudy morning sky. “You can tell them everything. You won’t be in trouble.”

“Bullshit,” Peter spat. His voice sounded muffled as if he were frantically wiping away the evidence of his tears. 

“You came here for a reason,” Potter pointed out. “You didn’t have to.”

Draco dropped his gaze, his eyes stinging. He watched Peter struggle with himself and knew, intimately, what that struggle might feel like. Draco hadn’t won, back then. He still wondered what the world might look like if he had. 

Finally, Peter croaked: “Yeah. Alright. Fine.”

That must have been what it felt like to be a bit player. Not the protagonist of his own grand, war-torn story, nor the antagonist in Potter’s. But someone forgettable-- the Curse-breaker with the Auror who said just the right things to change the course of someone else’s life. It felt monumental in its own way all the same. Draco hadn’t been sure if he believed his own speech to Peter. He wasn’t sure if he would have sold Lucius out if it had come down to it. He wasn’t sure if, given the chance to do it over, if he would have made different mistakes. 

But at the moment, it felt real. Perhaps this, too, was his atonement. 

 

III.

“How are you feeling?”

The question dragged unpleasantly at the last of Draco’s nerves. He wished Potter would quit asking him, especially in the tender voice he had now adopted. They stood together in a poorly lit corridor in one of the nearest Auror offices. It was all very  _ Muggle _ and  _ American _ , according to Potter, who seemed to know these things. He had said the building looked like something straight out of a Muggle television show about Police officers-- Muggle Aurors.

“I said I’m fine,” Draco said dully. He stared across the hall at the door, through which Peter was, ostensibly, spilling his guts to the two Aurors who had gone in with him. 

Draco  _ wasn’t _ fine. An unmoored irritation wrapped itself around his insides, twisting his stomach into knots and shocking his heart into staccato rhythms. He couldn’t pinpoint its origin, but he had a good hunch that the vague, old guilt welling up was not unrelated. Peter, stupid and young as he was, managed to break free in from the same thing that Draco failed to. He had made the right choice. It kept bringing Draco back to the idea that the darkness that his father has revelled in was something that was embedded into his very genes. 

“Hey.”

Draco dragged his eyes away from the door. Potter stepped up beside him and nearly crowded him against the wall. There was only a breath for Draco to move away should he please. He didn’t. “What?” Draco croaked. His mind flashed an image of Potter kissing him under the blankets just that morning, most unhelpfully. 

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Potter said. “You know, fine.”

“Why wouldn’t I be fine?” 

Potter rolled his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “You don’t have to talk about it.” He didn’t move back, though. It gave Draco the opportunity to, under the premise of shifting from one foot to the other, lean his shoulder against Potter’s and allow him to take some of his weight. He was burning warm even through his clothes. His short sleeves showed off the mismatched skin of his Splinch and Draco did everything in his power to resist trailing a finger along the newly forming seam.

“I was just thinking,” Draco said, his voice croaking around the words. “How Peter is doing what I couldn’t.”

Potter stiffened against him. “You were sixteen.”

Draco pulled a face. “Oh, don’t go getting soft on me now,” he said hotly. “Weren’t you eager to rake me over the coals two weeks ago? Just because I’ve let you snog me a bit--”

“Would you come off it?” Potter snapped. “ _ Forgiving _ you isn’t a character flaw.”

Draco pursed his lips and said nothing. He felt Potter’s whole body heaved with a sigh. “Look,” Potter said quietly. “You wanted to do better and this is it. Peter’s doing what you couldn’t do because you gave him the option.”

The words buzzed unpleasantly under his skin. Draco pressed his shoulder more firmly into Potter’s. 

“So if you’re not fine,” Potter said again. “It’s okay.”

Draco could do nothing but give a terse nod in return. They waited there in the poorly lit hall for what felt like hours. There was no place to sit, so Draco took to pacing, finally ungluing himself from the wall and Potter’s side. Draco wasn’t even sure why they were waiting for Peter to be done speaking to the Aurors. He didn’t want to know-- he wanted to continue on with their job and be done with it and go home. 

But wait they did. When the door finally opened, Draco felt his stomach turn to water as Peter emerged after the two Aurors who had gone in the room to question him. He looked haggard, and maybe a little afraid. 

Draco stayed at the end of the hall, watching. Potter exchanged words with the Aurors, too low for Draco to hear, while Peter hovered, staring fixedly at the opposite wall. Draco wondered whether weight had been lifted off him or if regret sat like poison in his gut. 

Finally, they parted ways-- Potter made his way down the hall towards him while the two Aurors and Peter disappeared around a corner. 

“Well?” Draco asked, afraid that the sharpness in his tone would give him soundly away.

“Peter had full names, dates, and locations for everything his father did and who he did it with,” Potter said, his tone full of surprise. Maybe a touch of admiration.

“What are they going to do with him?” Draco asked, watching the space where Peter had disappeared around the corner.

“He’s got an Auror team assigned to watch him for a while during the arrests and trials,” Potter said. “He was never actually an accomplice to anything except hindering an investigation, so… Two months without his wand, if that.”

Huh. “So that’s it,” Draco said, quite stupidly. “It’s just over.”

“For us, yeah,” Potter said. “Not quite defeating the Dark Lord and saving the entire Wizarding world, but…”

“One person is enough,” Draco agreed. “I think.”

“Me, too.” 

Potter kissed him right there in the hall. It felt decadent. It was just a brush, his hand coming up to the back of Draco’s head and sinking his fingers through his loose hair as he pressed their lips together. 

They didn’t quite breeze out of the Aurors’ office. There was paperwork to sign and statements to give of their own. It was another hour and a quarter before they were back to the car, half their day gone. Draco considered that perhaps  _ now _ they should talk about the kissing, since it had happened outside of the safety of the hotel room. Potter had gone and brought it into the world as an experience that Draco could not tuck away as a fever dream any longer. 

But still, he didn’t. He pressed his lips together and felt the ghost of Potter’s stubble on his cheeks. 

They got a late lunch at one of the many Muggle fast-food establishments that were beginning to grow on Draco quite a bit. The food was warm and greasy and it left him with a heavy stomach. But it was  _ so good _ . Afterward, they loaded themselves back in the car. If they kept at the rate they were going, it was looking like they could be boarding a plane home before the week was out. The thought was so deliriously pleasing to Draco that he allowed his mood to rise considerably and his tongue to loosen when Potter pestered him with conversation.

“The first thing I’m going to do is visit Molly Weasley and eat an entire plate of her treacle tart,” Potter said, laughing, when the conversation returned to their inevitable return. “I’ll have to bring you some. It’s better than the one at school.”

_ I’ll have to bring you some _ . Draco wondered if this meant that Potter was intending to extend their tentative friendship back home. “I like treacle tart,” he said, which had the pleasant effect of making Potter grin from ear to ear. 

“I steal things from my job sites,” Draco said, suddenly. He felt the need to confess this petty crime of his. “I give them to my house elf. That’s what I’m going to do, first thing. Give her a gift.”

Potter’s look of surprise stung, but then his face burst into that large smile again. “Have you knicked anything yet?”

Heat shot to Draco’s face. He cleared his throat a bit before shaking his head. “Not yet,” he admitted. “She likes those Muggle things. They’re little baubles, you know. You shake them around and it looks like they’re snowing inside.”

Potter laughed loudly, the sound reverberating against the car windows and Draco’s ribs. “Yeah, snow globes.”

“Creative bunch, aren’t they?”

Potter laughed again, softer this time, perhaps fond. Draco couldn’t shake the pleasant feeling that roiled through him each time he induced those sounds. He certainly didn’t want to analyze it, nor anything else that had happened over the past twenty-four hours. As they lapsed into silence once more, the quiet churn of the road beneath the tires filling the quiet between them, it didn’t seem that Potter was any more keen to discuss what had been happening. For the most part, he seemed wholly unbothered, though Draco couldn’t fathom why. 

They managed to hit two more cursed spots before night fell. The cheery map led them to another out of the way motel, its gravel car park nearly up against the road. When they opened the door to the room, Draco saw immediately that only one bed took up space against the wall. He had a tingling feeling in the back of his head that this was not a simple shortage of beds, but rather a deliberate choice by Potter upon ordering their room. He couldn’t decide how he felt about that, so he shoved it down and resolved to feel nothing. 

The air felt staticky as they readied themselves for a night in the room. Draco took a long, luxurious shower to himself, washing away the days anxieties. He emerged only when the water ran cool, leaving a warming charm on the shower head for Potter. 

Being locked in the hotel room together felt more impossible than being locked in the car. Suddenly, Draco didn’t know what to say or do or how to act. They would share the bed and perhaps even snog some more. Draco wished he hadn’t thrown it so snidely in Potter’s face earlier, because he found that he was anticipating it quite a bit. Pleasantly, in fact. He listened to the shower run as he brushed out his hair and twined it into a delicate plait down the back of his head. 

When Potter emerged, rubbing a towel through his damp hair instead of using a drying charm, Draco said, “This kissing business.”

“I was thinking it was more fun than business,” Potter quipped as he dropped onto the bed. 

Draco hummed, annoyed. “I’m sure you would.” He turned to look at Potter, lips pressing tight together. Potter was grinning at him, face all scrunched and pleased with himself.

“Why?” Draco finally asked. 

“You’re asking me why I’m kissing you?” Potter clarified. Draco’s face burned with embarrassment.

“In so many words,” he agreed.

“I don’t have a profound reason.” Potter rolled his eyes in a way that made Draco feel quite silly indeed. “I wanted to, so I did.”

“And when you don’t want to anymore, you won’t.”

“That’s generally how things work, yeah.”

Draco scowled prettily. “You don’t-- You’re not…  _ we’re _ not--”

Potter waited patiently for Draco to get the words out.

“You wouldn’t call us friends,” Draco finally decided on.

Potter made a humming noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t know. Ask me a week ago, I might have said no. But you get kind of close to a guy when you see his hair care routine every night.”

“Oh!” Draco flushed. “Would you be serious for one minute?”

“No,” Potter laughed. “Draco, if you still think I hate you,  _ now _ , after everything, then I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve had friends before, right? Like real ones. Ones you’ve liked.”

“I liked Pansy. And Theodore. And Blaise.” Draco felt a tad defensive and maybe a little jealous. It was true that his friendship with Zabini had been based more on social standing than anything, but Theodore had visited the Manor several times over the long summers and they spent hours talking in the gardens. Admittedly, he and Pansy’s relationship consisted of using one another, but neither of them cared, not really. 

“Okay,” Potter said, lifting his hands in surrender. “So relax. We’re friends now, Draco.”

Draco didn’t know if he wanted to put Potter in the same category as Pansy:  _ friends I have snogged _ . Because it didn’t feel the same. Snogging Pansy had been something to do, something he did to get her to do things for him, like getting gossip that he could use against anyone who annoyed him. Kissing Potter was leagues different. Probably because he was a wizard and not a witch-- a difference that Draco hadn’t even, consciously, considered viable.

“Fine,” Draco agreed hotly.

“Don’t be a prat about it,” Potter snipped back. “If it’s such a hardship.”

This was going poorly. Draco scrubbed his hands over his face. “Okay, alright,” he said, defeated. “Force of habit.”

Potter reached across the space between them on the bed and pulled him down into the sheets. They went together and Draco exhaled sharply when he found himself nose to nose with Potter once more, his eyes bright against the poor motel lighting. He was under the impression that if Potter wanted to kiss him, he would. Potter fitted one arm around his middle, tucking the other up under his pillow. Draco’s arms lay between them, tucked against Potter’s chest. 

“Why did you grow your hair out?” Potter asked, voice low.

Draco blinked, surprised by the question. “I thought perhaps people would recognize me less,” he admitted. “And I look fit.”

Potter grinned. He lifted the arm around Draco’s waist so that he could touch the plaits of Draco’s braid. “Yeah,” he agreed. “You do.”

Potter kissed him then. Draco felt as if he had been waiting for it for years, as if their last kiss shared in the Aurors' office had been decades ago. His mouth curled into a smile against Potter’ lips against his own volition. Potter made him feel and do things like that— smiling against his lips. It was something Pansy used to do, and Draco wished he could stop comparing all of his kissing experiences up against Pansy. 

Potter pulled the blankets over them, over their heads, until it was just their uncomfortable, humid breath and the darkness of the scratchy comforter. Draco allowed himself to be kissed, Potter’s mouth moving against his own in slow, dragging glides. It sent sparks down to his stomach, under his skin. It lit him up from the inside out. Potter’s hand moved from his plait, down his neck, his palm hotter than the rest of him, or maybe it was Draco’s imagination. Potter’s touch, in his mind’s eye, lighting up his skin like a candle. 

Draco’s mouth went slack with distraction as Potter’s hand found its way to his back again, but lower, to the arch above his backside. He pressed there and Draco moved, a puppet, until he could hardly tell where his own body began and Potter’s ended. He moved his arms, coiling one around Potter’s shoulders. He couldn’t get close enough like this. He had to shift, to open his legs, to hook one knee against Potter’s hip and invite him deeper against his body. They moved, slowly, until Potter pressed him down to the old, creaking mattress. Draco felt suffocated by him, but dared not remove his lips from Potter’s for fear that he might stop kissing him for good.

It was strange to be under another person, and more strange that it was Harry. Draco tried not to let himself think too long about it, worried that his thoughts were transmittable in the slackening of his lips against Harry’s, in the way his hands came to rest, lazy and soft, against Harry’s chest, splayed over where Harry’s heart thumped steady and strong beneath his ribs. They kissed until Draco felt like his mouth might fall off with it, until his skin became hot and sweaty, until he felt dizzy and eager for more and unsure, exactly how to get Harry to give it to him. 

“Potter,” Draco said. That amused Harry, it seemed, because he paused to laugh puffs of breath against Draco’s jaw. 

“Yes?” Harry replied. His mouth had moved now from Draco’s lips to other places along his skin. Draco couldn’t stop a full-body squirm as Harry’s lips pressed curious, wet kisses just along the underside of his jaw, up until he reached his ear. Draco arched his shoulders protectively against his neck. Undeterred, Harry simply propped himself over top of Draco, elbows on either side of his head, and looked down. 

“I want--” Draco hesitated. The words grew sticky in the back of his throat. Harry grinned, looking pleased.

“Yes?” He encouraged. His fingertips curled ceaselessly through the loose strands of Draco’s hair, now strewn over the pillows, in danger of snarling through the night. 

Words escaped him. Draco drew Harry down for another kiss instead, pleased with the way the heat of it made itself known in every nerve ending in his body. It felt as if the swampy, summer air was penetrating into the hotel room, overtaking the churning air box that circulated the cool, stale air. One of Harry’s hands rucked its way underneath Draco’s shirt, pulling it from the waistband of Draco’s trousers. Harry’s palm was scorching as it worked its way up his chest, splaying over his skin. Draco slid his own hands along Harry’s arms, up his shoulders, getting his fingers into the messy hair at the back of his neck. 

“What do you want?” Harry urged softly, mouthing along Draco’s jaw again. He would have to say something. Anything. 

“I’m not sure,” Draco admitted, voiceless. “More.”

“Okay,” Harry breathed. He removed his hand from Draco’s shirt. Draco’s own hands fumbled for the buttons, pulling them open. Harry held himself up on one arm, watching in a way that moved the flush from Draco’s cheeks all the way down his chest. Harry moved, sitting up further, pulling his shirt over his head. Draco’s eyes roved down across Harry’s chest, the curls of dark hair, the scars that had not ever healed from one run-in or another. Draco felt consumed with need that he had never had before to put his mouth right against Harry’s chest. 

Harry came down to meet him again. Draco gave into the instinct to wind his arms around Harry’s shoulders again as Harry kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, until his breath came shallow from his nose and his head felt dizzy and wanting. Draco opened his thighs for him again and Harry fit between them, pelvis to pelvis, sending sharp, white-hot need into every narrow bone of his body.

“This?” Harry asked.  _ This _ was Harry’s chest against him, his body opening him up, pressing him into the mattress.  _ This _ was good,  _ this _ was perfect, and it was not nearly enough. 

“More,” Draco whispered. Harry’s lips found Draco’s cheek and he could feel him smile there. 

“Okay,” Harry agreed. He pushed himself up on his hands and then back on his knees. The effect allowed Draco’s thighs to drape over Harry’s and he felt something new burst open in his chest as he lay back, drawing in one heaving breath after the other. His brain stuttered, stupidly, and he wondered if he wanted to do this at all, whatever this was, or if he simply wanted to ensure that Harry would, indeed, keep kissing him.

Harry’s hands on his thighs, splayed, wide, pushing up to the apex. Thumbing the button and fly of his trousers. Draco sucked in his stomach. He exhaled a chuckle when Harry laughed and they stared at one another, eyes met. Draco felt, then, that yes— he wanted this. More of whatever this was, whatever Harry might give him if he asked ever so nicely. 

Harry opened his trousers and pulled them down over his hips. It happened so quickly. One minute he was clothed and the next his thighs were trapped in the folds of his trousers, prick out, not quite hard but certainly ready to be convinced of it. “Okay?” Harry asked, his thumbs pressing into the dip of Draco’s hips. Draco nodded, almost too quickly, flushed from cheeks to throat to belly.

Draco was almost surprised by how okay this was. 

“Yes,” he breathed. Harry’s hand moved, thumbs and fingers, curling around his prick, holding it against his palm where it, quite pleasantly, hardened. Draco’s eyes closed then, lips pressing into a thin line. He could feel every callous on Harry’s hand sparking a pleasure that began at the base of his spine. Harry bent over him and kissed him. Draco felt his whole body go warm and sharp as he kissed him back. He pushed his hands into Harry’s hair, twisting his fingers through the shaggy strands at the back of his head. 

Harry’s hand began to move, tight, sliding over the head of his cock. Draco groaned right into Harry’s mouth, which felt embarrassing in a way that he couldn’t pinpoint, something he’d never experienced. Harry smiled against his lips and for a moment, Draco thought he might be able to laugh at him. But he tucked his face against Draco’s jaw and he made another noise, there-- pleased, delighted. Draco laughed, exhaling.

Everything up to that point felt stilted, uncertain, moving slowly and carefully. It was as if the spark that had begun under Draco’s skin ignited, and he arched his body into Harry’s and Harry pressed down into him. His hand moved certainly, then, thumb dragging against the wet head of Draco’s cock-- over and over when Draco make a choked, humiliating sound, as was was striving to hear it again. Draco’s hands moved on their own accord, down from Harry’s hair and across his arms, shoulders, down over his ribs. 

The soft fabric of Potter’s sleep pants crumbled under Draco’s seeking hands. He pushed them down over his hips and looked Harry in the face when his own hand curled around Harry’s cock. It was warm and thick and Draco liked the way Harry’s expression faltered and them crumbled. It was stupid, sex. Humiliating and stupid with strange noises and fluids and flushed cheeks. But it was  _ good _ and Draco allowed himself to feel good, allowed the warmth in his hips guide his hand. 

Harry groaned, deep and throaty, and the sound went to Draco’s cock. Harry bent over him and stole another kiss, licking into his mouth, distracted and wholly disgusting. Draco let it happen— reveled in it even, the taste of another person, of Harry, on his lips, on his tongue. Harry twisted his fist around the head of Draco’s cock and he saw stars, thighs desperate to spread wider, to buck up, to grind into that warmth. His own hand faltered, getting lost. 

“Here,” Harry said, breathless. He took Draco’s hands in his own, laced their fingers, pressed them into the bed on either side of Draco’s head. When he drove forward, Draco felt Harry’s cock slide messily along his and it was so— it was so— Draco’s mind shuttered to a stupid halt as he made a humiliating noise, breathless and strangled in the back of his throat. He tightened his own fingers around Harry’s and clung to him. 

“Yeah?” Harry breathed. Draco didn’t know how he was supposed to answer, but he supposed Harry wasn’t really looking for one. “Feels good, yeah?”

Draco ground his hips up as Harry pressed down against him. It was an untidy rhythm, neither of them focused very much on the other. The coiled hair on Harry’s stomach scraped just so over the head of Draco’s cock, changing the texture, sending new, sharp pleasure coils through his blood. Perhaps Harry had been waiting for this moment since the kissing began, because Draco could feel his muscles begin to tighten, his hips begin to shudder with short, specific movements, dragging his thick cock against the hollow of Draco’s hips. It was surreal to feel him begin to climax, from the first quiver of his skin, to the wet, musky splash of fluid across his belly. He wanted to wrap himself around Harry but his hands were still pinned to the bed, more so as Harry chased the last dregs of his climax. 

Hard, still, Draco stared up at the ceiling, dizzy, almost entirely satisfied. Harry’s mouth moved slowly along Draco’s jaw, his throat, until he found his lips again. He released Draco’s hands, sitting up a bit wobbly on his knees. He looked quite silly, then— cock out and wet and softening. Draco supposed he must look much the same. As Harry’s eyes trailed down to where Draco remained hard, his hands followed. He smeared his own come into Draco’s skin and it was set his nerves on fire with even more want. 

Harry’s wet hand wrapped around him again. Their eyes met and Harry grinned. Draco’s face must have done something quite embarrassing, because Harry began to stroke him again, firmly, fully, pressing his other hand to Draco’s belly to keep him still. Draco’s hips twitched and met resistance. He covered his face with his hands, gasping, sucking in deep breath after breath until Harry dragged his climax from him, pull after pull. 

Draco didn’t know what to expect when it was over. His body felt wrung out. Harry lifted off him, pulling the elastic of his trousers back up over his hips. Draco watched as he went to the bathroom and listened to the water running. When he returned, Draco was mortified to see a damp washcloth in his hand. He didn’t move, though. He stayed perfectly still, hands where Harry had left them, as he allowed Harry to clean up his stomach with the damp cloth. 

“That was…” Draco cleared his throat. “Nice.” 

“Oh, nice,” Harry snorted. “Just nice.”

Draco grabbed the dirty flannel from his hand and smacked him in the arm with it. “You ought to have gotten two beds,” Draco warned. “You’ll be on the floor at this rate.”

Harry roared with laughter and spread himself over Draco, wrapping him in his arms, rolling them in the bed. Draco could not stop his answering mirth if he tried. 

It was as if they had crossed a threshold that could not be backed out of. Something changed and that was okay. It would be changed forever, now— in Draco, in the air, in the way the wind whistled as if to congratulate them on finding such a tender moment in the world around them. 

 

IV.

Their journey ended, perhaps as it had always meant to, at the farm house in Laurel Fork. 

Draco stood in front of the porch steps. The magic embedded into the wood clawed outward at him in pulsing waves. Potter, at his side, stayed stoic and steady. Being back here, after all the time away, felt profound, though Draco wasn’t prone to thinking such nonsense. He twisted his wand between his fingertips; the hawthorne wood had always been a soothing balm to any of his magical anxieties. He meant to ask Potter why he had given it to the ministry to be returned to him instead of keeping it for himself-- it was a good wand, after all --but the question seemed silly now, after everything. 

They’d gotten the report from Yeltz earlier that morning that their counter-curse was working for the other borrowed teams of Aurors and Curse-breakers, too. Peter’s confession had lead to an unprecedented raid on the Bureau’s own people. Wizarding America felt a bit like it was falling apart at the seams, but at the very least  _ this _ was a stitch in the right direction.

Draco didn’t know what he was going to do first thing he got home, despite his answer to Potter the other day. He supposed he would go back to work in his office, tucked away at the end of the hall, unseen, unheard. He would continue to take lunches alone and floo home after everyone else had left so as not to gather stares and side-eyes. He would eat tilapia and avoid answering owls from Mother and keep to himself. He tried to imagine himself in a world where Potter fit into that sad, pathetic routine. A night out at the Leaky Cauldron, maybe. A dinner in of Muggle fast-food, reminding themselves of the long hours spend on the road. 

Draco tried to imagine a world in which he returned home and he would still be allowed to kiss Harry Potter. His brain shuttered, stupidly to a halt before he managed it. 

“Ready to go home?” Potter asked, voice tight with something like restrained joy. It drew Draco out of his thoughts, leaving his mind spinning with hopeless possibilities. Exhaling a soft laugh, Draco nodded.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I really, really am.”

They climbed the steps together, a poignant juxtaposition of the first time that Potter had headed in on his own with Draco trailing at his heels. The wood creaked beneath their weight and Draco could feel the lingering magic running up the base of his spine, licking at the hairs at the nape of his neck. It had remained the same, the house, just as Draco remembered leaving it. He touched the wooden banister at the stairs, leading upward to that first horrific, bloody mark. Draco resisted touching his forearm through his sleeve and refused to give the faint throbbing there any attention. 

“Together?” Potter suggested.

Draco looked at him and his stomach flipped over itself. “Yes,” he breathed.  _ Together _ . It meant something more now in a way that caused heat to shoot all the way under Draco’s skin.

They stood back to back. When Draco lifted his wand, he felt the magic of the curse recoil in displeasure. He pressed the line of his shoulders back against Potter’s and felt him do the same, their weight holding one another upright. Draco sucked in a deep breath. “Count of three?” He suggested.

“Yeah,” Potter agreed, soft and voiceless. Perhaps Potter, too, could feel the tension of the house-- or at least, the tension of the moment splayed plainly across Draco’s muscles. 

“One,” Draco said. “Two. Three.  _ Intermissium _ .”

“ _ Intermissium! _ ” Potter’s voice reverberated around his own and the spell slipped and slid smoothly from their wands-- perhaps more of the same spell, rather than a double or a copy from two lips.

Draco had built the moment up in his head so grandly that when the counter-curse ripped the existing spell form the boards of the house, it felt anti-climactic. Draco could feel it retreating, could feel the static it left behind no longer lapping at his skin, nipping viciously at his heels, taunting the corners of his peripheral. When it was done and over, it was  _ done _ and it was  _ over _ and Draco felt exhausted despite the ease of the spell. All the damage that these people had caused, and all it took was one word to undo it. 

“That’s it,” Potter said. They both turned to face one another at the same time. Potter’s face was beaming, nearly glowing with joy. It took Draco a moment to let the relief wash over him. It turned him wobbly on his feet and he pushed one hand against his face, letting out a sharp, surprised laugh. 

“That’s it,” Draco repeated. It was  _ over _ . They could go  _ home _ . If Draco felt confident enough to apparate across an ocean, he’d be home this very second. 

Draco let Potter kiss him; he let him cup his hands against his jaw and drag his face down and he let Potter kiss him surrounded by the dust and dirt of the old family home, at peace once more. Potter laughed against his lips, which turned the kiss stuttering and silly. Draco recaptured it again, holding Potter’s cheek steady with one palm. 

When they drew apart, breathless and giddy, Potter said, “Your bauble. For your house elf. Good of place to steal from as any.”

Draco was startled into laughter. “Breaking the law all over the place, aren’t we?”

But still, he let Potter search the downstairs sitting room for something suitable to bring back to Dandelion. There was a snow globe, just the way Dandelion liked best, sitting on top of the mantle above the back of the couch. Inside was a stag, sheltered by the little glass dome, tiny antlers held regally aloft. When Draco shook it, the little flakes inside were painted red, stark against the white bottom beneath the stag’s little false hooves. 

Draco pocketed the snow globe. Out of his periphery, Draco caught Potter looking mighty pleased with himself.

They cleaned up the house the way they had cleaned up after the other curses. Draco climbed the steps to the second floor, this time with Potter just behind him. He could feel his warmth radiating against his back despite him being a step or two below him on the ascension. The left hand bedroom stood just as it had the weeks before, sharp in its sudden familiarity. The closet door hung open still, just as Draco had left it, and the mark that Peter had smeared there in an attempt to scare them off had dried. The more Draco stared at it, now, the more he could see how crude and pitiful it was. An imitation of the mark that had adorned his skin, that had sent fear into his heart at each dark flash of his wrist. 

With a flick of his wand, it was gone, nothing but dried dust now. Beside him, Potter exhaled. 

“So that’s it,” Draco said. 

“I can call Yeltz and get us on a plane tonight,” Potter said. Draco scrunched his face, nose wrinkling tight at the thought of getting back on one of those small, cramped, metal contraptions and vaulting himself through the air. He didn’t feel like Splinching himself attempting to apparate back to his flat, either. He’d never apparated further than a country over, much less an ocean. He imagined Potter, with the skin on his bicep still a shade too light, wasn’t too keen on the idea, either. A plane. Nine hours. Home. His bed. Dandelion. A normal, English meal. 

“Yeah,” Draco agreed. “Let’s go.”

Draco stood on the top step of the porch when they exited, the sky shimmering flecks of red and pink as the sun moved more heavily towards the horizons of the surrounding trees. The sky moved differently here. The sun felt warmer, the infinite blue wider, the trees taller, the landscape rolling and stretching and scrunching as the black highways glided around them. He would miss it, he realized with a pang. It was new and inescapably Muggle in a way that he had never thought himself capable of appreciating. He would even miss, just a bit, the smell of the motel rooms and the stagnant, false air churning from vents. 

And the things that happened in those motel rooms: quiet, unseen, tucked away, deeply satisfying. Scratching an itch that, for the longest time, he had denied himself ever feeling. It felt as if something had opened itself in his chest and made him capable of shades of feeling instead of the three moods he had designated for himself to get through the day. Into his mind, unbidden, were thoughts of skin and skin and skin; mouths that could change the shape of that skin, burning, growing, sliding together. How bodies fit against one another astounded Draco to no end.

It was as if he was a never-ending changing piece of some sinuous puzzle, the end result always just tantalizing out of reach. 

He watched Potter lean against the front of the car and call Yeltz. An unsteady pang thrummed through his ribs. He would miss Potter, too-- like this, the way he was now, the way he was in a cramped car at half eleven at night, laughing around his third truck-stop cup of coffee. It was a version of Potter that Draco felt greedy over, possessive. A version of Potter that Draco could safely assume was his and his alone. The same way that this version of himself-- softer, warmer, melted in Potter’s palms --was intrinsically something that belonged now to Potter. Or perhaps these were two versions of themselves that could not be untwined. Two versions of themselves that existed nowhere but the long, inky stretches of highway and the humid car parks of motels in the early morning. 

The idea that this part of himself would no longer exist once he crossed back into his own world felt mortifying. 

Potter hung up the phone. Their eyes met and they watched one another. Draco wondered if Potter could see everything he felt written plain as day across his face. For once, he didn’t have the energy to shutter his expression. He left it as it was, whatever it was, and hoped that something like grief didn’t dare show itself in the soft moue of his lips. 

“We have a flight at eleven,” Potter said. 

“Just like that,” Draco said, surprised. “The efficiency of Muggles is starting to grow on me.”

A pleased grin flashed over Potter’s face. “Come on,” he said, pushing back from the hood of the car. Draco glanced back at the house. It was quiet and put together and ready for the Muggle family to be moved back in. Memory charms could only do so much. They could remove or alter the memory, but not the trauma that came along with it. Draco couldn’t help but wonder if the girl who had been moved to St. Augustine’s would always avoid the once blood-soaked kitchen, unable to remember why. 

It wasn’t a perfect ending. Draco couldn’t even be sure if it was a particularly happy one. But it was an ending, and he supposed that was all he could ask for, now. 


	5. Home: Reprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been one hell of a ride!!!! Thank you endlessly to Julia for commenting on every single paragraph and editing every instance of my misspellings. Thank you to Liddy who was there when I began. Thank you to Bob who has drawn more fan art of this fic than I have. Thank you to Ashleigh, so was there every time I hit a new milestone. Thank you to my girlfriend who tolerated living with me while I wrote 60k of Drarry fan fiction. And thank you to ALL OF YOU! Who have read this and commented and shared it and let me know I created something you enjoyed. 
> 
> Have fun!

I.

 

The note came by folded paper, whizzing into Draco’s office and missing his desk by a few inches, plunging itself into his wire rubbish basket. Draco paused, looking up from the paperwork that had piled in his absence. It felt surreal to be back in his small, cramped office, looking at his view of the back of Martin’s head as his officemate made no more attempts than before to engage in any conversation beyond how dreary London weather was. 

In the weeks that Draco had been home, he tried very hard to think of nothing of his time in America. Ellingsworth had congratulated him heartily in his role in removing the curses and had fawned over Potter’s new battle wound, though neither of them admitted it had been caused by stupidly grabbing hold of a volatile, Apparating kid. The praise lasted for a single day. Then, Draco returned to his quiet, corner office, tucked far away where the rest of the Curse-Breaking Department did not have to look at him. Potter returned to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and that had been that. 

As Draco had predicted ( _ hoped against, prayed against, even _ ) the return to London had unmoored them as friends. The distance between them became physical, the DMLE floors below Draco’s own wing of the Ministry. They did not cross paths at the Floo in the atrium. Draco did not see him when he stole a quiet half hour for his lunch in the canteen. It was as if Potter had disappeared into the endless belly of the Ministry never to be seen again. Strangely, Draco had seen Miss Granger on several occasions in the weeks of his return. She greeted him somewhat warmly, always smiling with her eyes as they passed one another. Each time Draco wanted to stop, to say something meaningful, but each time she swept away, important and self-assured.

Each evening, Draco returned to his flat. He stoked the fire low, even with the warm summer air permeating his walls, and refused to admit he was thinking about the damp, gasping heat out on the road. He ate alone, as he had always done. He went to bed alone and pretended it was a new novelty to spread himself out on the bed without encountering anyone else’s limbs.

Quite often he felt as if he were drowning in what had once been the quiet life he had no qualms leading. 

Bending over his chair, Draco plucked the note from the basket and unfolded it. The memo was no bigger than his palm and a strange, scribbled writing itched familiar at the back of his mind. It took him a moment to realize that the poorly written  _ Lunch? _ was the same handwriting as the note he had gotten explaining how to get to Heathrow and get through security. Draco remembered at the time thinking that Ellingsworth had a poorly trained new secretary. He could not imagine a single reason that Ellingsworth nor whatever secretary she had would want to see him over lunch.

There was no signature on either side. Not even initials. Draco’s face scrunched unpleasantly as he flipped the note from side to side, as if it were going to tell him more information the longer he stared. He didn’t even know who to send a refusal back to. He folded the note right back up on itself and plunked it back into the paper waste basket, resolving to think nothing more of it. 

Draco got through half a page of his paperwork before bending back over and retrieving the note again. “Martin,” he said. The tired, frumpy wizard did not look up. Draco stood and moved over to his desk, showing the note to him. “Do you recognize this?”

Martin glanced at the note, squinted, and shrugged. “Not mine.”

Draco swallowed down a particularly cruel insult. “No, I didn’t think so,” he said calmly. He tucked the note in the pocket of his robes and left the office, slipping into the hall. He made his way through the winding halls of the Curse-Breaking Department, passing closed office doors and ones propped open, voices drifting, carrying, laughter and giddy excitement for the upcoming weekend. 

Ellingsworth’s office door was open when he got there. Draco hovered, stupidly, just beyond the door frame before plucking up the courage to rap his fingers against the door and step inside. 

“Mr. Malfoy,” Ellingsworth said, surprised, looking up from whatever she had been doing. He watched her face dance through several emotions before deciding on neutral confusion. “Can I help you?”

The first thing that Draco noticed was that Ellingsworth did not, in fact, have a secretary of any kind. That dashed his only other theory quite quickly. He hesitated a moment, unsure now of what to say, or how to inquire about the note without sounding mad. He pulled it from the pocket of his robes all the same, unfolding it and handing it over.

“I had a note with the same handwriting in my case file,” Draco explained. “I didn’t think it was from you, but I was wondering if you knew who wrote it?”

Ellingsworth took one glance at the note and Draco could see that she found the whole thing immediately tedious. She pulled her wand from beneath a pile of papers on her desk and tapped the note with the end. It quivered before folding itself up and zipping up into the air. Draco watched as it twisted itself around and began to fly itself backwards. 

“That should send it back to where it came from,” Ellingsworth said, lips pressing to hide what Draco thought was perhaps a slightly un-kind smile. “Keep up with it, now.”

Draco opened his mouth to protest-- he had work to do, after all --but the note was zipping its way out the door without him. Feeling extremely silly, Draco turned on his heel and followed after it, having to walk quite quickly in order to keep up with the little note. He followed it through the halls of the Curse-Breaking Department, skidding around corners just to keep it in his line of sight. When it got to one of the lifts, Draco was grateful for the momentary pause. The memo hovered at the height of his shoulder. He was tempted to grab it out of the air again, crumble it up and ignore the strange, lopsided handwriting altogether.

The lift opened. This time of the afternoon, everyone already gone for their lunch hours, it was empty but for a few more memos making their way downward. Draco stepped in after his own memo, keeping his eye on it so as not to lose it in the crowd of flying paper. The lift went down, down, down, further than his own department sat. When it finally shuttered and clanked to a stop, dawning realization hit Draco in the gut, followed by a flush of embarrassment. 

Still, he followed the note as it trailed backwards through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, trying to look purposeful and not weak in the knees like he felt. A group of Auror witches passed him, laughing amongst themselves. They didn’t even look in his direction and the snub put Draco a little more at ease. 

Finally, the note came to a wiggly little halt hovering outside of an office door, just slightly cracked open. The golden writing on the front read  _  Auror Harry Potter _ . Draco snatched the memo out of the air before it could weave its way through the opening in the door. He crumbled it in his fist and shoved it into the recesses of his robes before rapping his knuckles against the wood of the door, poking his head inside.

Potter sat at his desk, overlooking paperwork. Behind him, a magicked window billowed in waves of warm sunlight, which Draco thought quite unnecessary an image. His mind churned back to the note that had accompanied the case files. The sloppy handwriting painstakingly explaining how exactly to get to Heathrow, how to get through the security measures, how to navigate the strange, new world of a Muggle airport. Just then, Draco couldn’t stop himself from picturing Potter bent over his desk, just like this, the sun coming in just the way it was then, scratching out each detail. 

It did something strange to Draco’s chest.

Potter looked up and his expression fell open, a now familiar boyish grin flickering over his lips. “You got my note.”

“Yes,” Draco said, his voice feeling particularly weak. “You wrote the other one, too. About how to get to the airport.”

Potter’s face did something complicated. Draco envied the nut-brown skin that hid the evidence of a flush, as his own cheeks were bound to be burning red. They stared at one another. Draco found it strange to be alone with Potter after everything they had shared. From the long, quiet nights saying nothing, to all the things that needn’t have been said. After a quiet moment, Potter nodded and cleared his throat.

“Yeah,” he said, finally. “Yeah, I did.”

“You hated me though,” Draco pointed out. “At the time.”

Potter’s face continued to war with itself. He leaned his elbows on his desk, weaving his fingers together in a lattice, resting his chin on his knuckles. “Hate is a strong word,” he said. “I felt sorry for you.” He paused a moment, then added, “At the time.”

“Right,” Draco said. He cleared his own throat and clasped his hands together behind his back, squaring his shoulders. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to feel insulted by that, but he supposed he would have felt sorry for himself, too. “So you wanted to see me?”

All at once, Potter’s face transformed neatly into one that Draco was intimately familiar with. There was such joy to be found there. Draco’s stomach flipped pleasantly.

“I wanted to get lunch,” Potter said. “You’re notoriously hard to get ahold of. I would have thought you were avoiding me.” His tone was warm and teasing, as if he did think exactly that but was ready to forgive Draco on the spot for his transgression. 

“I thought you might have been avoiding me,” Draco said, looking down, suddenly overcome with the inability to look at Potter as he admitted such a thing. “That was the deal, though, wasn’t it? A truce until we came home. And then--” Draco paused, his throat going tight. Heat rushed to his face and the familiar well of humiliation prickled the hairs at the back of his neck.

“Draco.” Potter’s voice stoked the flames of Draco’s own embarrassment. 

“And then we could go back to not thinking of one another again,” Draco forged on. He believed himself unable to say it, otherwise. “I was determined to uphold my end of the bargain.”

With measured movements, Draco looked up. He met Potter’s gaze, unsure of what he would find there. He was unprepared for confusion, perhaps something like detestable pity. Draco held himself sturdy, lips pressing into a bloodless line while he waited for Potter to confirm or deny his understanding of their agreement. 

“Okay, so…” Potter’s words faltered a moment before he found it in him to continue. “Some things changed between our truce and now.” 

Draco watched Potter’s eyes flicker down his body and then up. He’d never been looked at like that before. It made his face turn warm. He squared his shoulders more firmly and tried his best not to look affected. “We never discussed it,” Draco pointed out.

“I thought it was obvious,” Potter admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t really think… I didn’t think it needed discussing?”

Draco processing Potter’s words turned into a silence between them that quickly became uncomfortable. Draco supposed if he was better versed in these kinds of things, they might not need discussion. America, the winding roads, the hotels… they were all part of a different world that Draco had assumed bloomed out of circumstance. Perhaps, in Potter’s case, even out of convenience. Draco had been there and he had been willing. In the nine hour plane ride home, as they sat in silence over the dark ocean, Draco had begun to convince himself that it meant very little at all. Warmth churned over in the hind-part of his brain to realize that, perhaps, he had been gloriously, ridiculously wrong.

Draco cleared his throat once more and moved his hands to clasp them in front of him instead. He hoped the motion affected a more relaxed demeanor. “So, lunch?” He asked.

Potter looked relieved. “Yes,” he said quickly, standing from his desk. “I was thinking of popping over to Diagon Alley. I wanted to know if you’d join me.”

“Of course,” Draco said, sucking in a breath until his lungs felt like they might explode. He felt lighter than air, able to fly without a broom. For one delirious moment, Draco thought Potter meant to kiss him as he came around the desk. But he simply moved passed him towards the door. Unable to do much else, Draco turned and followed, as if finally allowing himself to be pulled into Potter’s inescapable orbit. 

 

II.

So, they got lunch.

Then again on Monday, too. Draco was greeted once more with a folded note and the handwriting that he now knew to be Potter’s:  _ Lunch? _ The day after that came another memo and another outing. They took their lunches leisurely, wandering through Diagon Alley in their red and green robes, as if they were teenagers all over again. Each day they sampled a new place in Diagon Alley to eat, avoiding places they’ve been before. It resulted in rather strange and unbalanced meals, one afternoon seeing them sharing a loaf of freshly baked cinnamon bread from a local bakery. Another time they ate so many sweets that Draco went home early to lay about instead of going back into the office.

Draco couldn’t be sure what it was that they were doing. But it was fun.

Martin began to take notice, which surprised Draco more than anything else about the whole, strange ordeal. As Friday rolled back around, his officemate glanced up as another memo zoomed its way into the room, dropped delicately across Draco’s paperwork. 

“Where is it that you’re running off to every day now?” Martin asked, a frown curling down the edges of his already jowly mouth. Draco glanced down as he unfolded the note, smiling a little at the loopy scrawl.  _ Ditch robes. Shirt + trousers. Curry place in Muggle London.  _

“Just a friend,” Draco said lightly. It felt quite good to be telling the truth about that. Whatever else he and Potter were, perhaps pointedly, not discussing, they were at the very least friends once more. He stood from his chair and shrugged his outer robes off and laid them over the back of his chair. Habit dictated that he check the cuffs of his emerald green sleeves were properly buttoned before he tucked his wand into his boot and headed out of the office. He even waved to Martin as he exited. 

Draco went to meet Potter in his office as he always did. The door was ajar as Potter had a tendency to leave it. Before he could knock, though, he heard voices inside that made no effort to be hushed. Draco tried to tell himself that he wouldn’t stoop so low as to eavesdrop on Potter’s business conversation, but he was nosy indeed, and that was before he had heard his own name in the blur of conversation.

“I just think it’s weird, mate,” a voice who was, decidedly, not Potter said. It took Draco a minute to place it, deeper than it had been years ago in school. “People have been talking, you know. About you and Malfoy.”

“Since when have I ever cared what people are saying?” That was Potter. He didn’t sound annoyed, exactly, though Draco assumed that he was able to take Weasley’s comments with more good faith than Draco was able to do just then. “Besides,” Potter went on. “We’re getting lunch. Nothing elicit.”

Weasley made a noise. “No thanks, don’t need that image.” There was a pregnant pause before Weasley spoke again. “I mean, he  _ was _ a Death Eater. He joined up and everything.”

“I don’t think he joined up so much as his parents were both involved,” Potter said, his voice going a little lower. Draco had to strain to hear him speak. His heart began to race, his stomach turning to water, his hands growing damp as he rubbed them over the thighs of his trousers. “He was sixteen. He didn’t make the right choices.”

“He tried to  _ poison _ me!” Weasley yelped. “He nearly killed Katie Bell. Who knows how many people died because of those maniacs he let into the castle.  _ You _ were sixteen when all that happened and  _ you _ didn’t go around betraying everyone you knew.”

Draco’s stomach churned and he pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth hard to avoid allowing the wave of nausea to seep over him.

“He’s sorry, for the record,” Potter said, annoyance audible in the tetchy way he snipped the words out. “I just spent two weeks living in the bloke’s pocket. He’s different. He’s trying to make up for a lot of things. I just don’t think he knows how.”

“Oh, sorry, yeah, that’ll bring back Mad-Eye and Tonks and Fred, won’t it?” Weasley’s words felt visceral. Draco leaned his back against the wall beside Potter’s office door. His lungs felt as if they wouldn’t expand all the way.  

“Ron…” Potter’s voice now, different, softer.

Weasley made a sound. “Yeah, alright. I know. Not fair.”

“A little fair,” Potter said. It made Draco want to curl in on himself and vomit. It was  _ entirely _ fair. Draco didn’t understand why Potter was curbing his own moral compass in order to defend him.

“Has he still got… You know?” Weasley asked next. It took Draco a moment to focus on what he might be referring to. His forearm gave a phantom pulse. 

“No,” Potter said, flatly. “He hasn’t. Listen, I’m not asking you to be best friends with Draco Malfoy. But even Hermione has let go of some things.”

“Well, she’s always been soft.”

“Better not let her hear you say that.”

Silence stretched before Draco heard them both share a quiet chuckle. He could hear movement in the office and he stood up from the wall. His head spun, his vision threatening to go dark at the edges. He couldn’t imagine stepping foot in Potter’s office, nor facing Weasley, nor Granger, nor anyone else ever again. How stupid of him to have thought acting kindly and saving a few cursed Muggles would atone for the damage he had caused, so rampant and deep that tendrils of it still cracked the surface of his world to this day. It was with cowardice that Draco considered turning his back on Potter’s office and retreating back to the lonely world he had once known. 

He could leave. He almost did. Draco turned on the spot twice, finding himself facing the office door once more. He rapped his knuckles against the wood and pushed it open. “Potter,” he greeted. He had not ever been a very good actor. He supposed that it read on his face that he had overheard their conversation. One look at Potter told Draco that Potter knew, and that Potter knew that  _ he _ knew. It made him all the more queasy.

“Auror Weasley,” Draco greeted, his voice thick. Weasley stared at him from where he sat leaned back against Potter’s desk, asserting his casual claim to this space with a single dismissive glance.

“Draco,” Potter said in a poor attempt at sounding casual, as if they all didn’t know exactly what Draco had heard. “Ron, if you’ll excuse me. We’ve got plans for lunch.”

“Have fun, mate,” Weasley said, pushing away from the desk and crossing the room. He passed by Draco so closely that their shoulders nearly brushed. It was an act of mild intimidation that Draco was humiliated to admit nearly worked. He felt like the bones in his knees were coming undone, and as soon as Weasley closed the door behind him, Draco sank into the nearest chair. He held his face in his faces. His skin felt clammy. Remorse felt heavier than stone.

The world narrowed in on his vision and it took him a moment to realize that Potter had leaped up from his seat and come around the desk, squatting in front of him. He held Draco’s head in his hands, thumbs stroking rhythmically against his temples. Draco focused on the rough, familiar callouses. Calluses he had felt elsewhere, on intimate parts of himself, on his ribcage, on the inside of his lung and the underside of his knee. 

“Hey,” Potter said, his voice soft and ever so far away. “Draco, focus on me, alright?”

“Your friends,” Draco forced himself to say before he lost his nerve. “And Weasley’s brother--”

“Listen,” Potter said, bending a little so that he was right in Draco’s eyeline. “The night you let the Death Eaters into the castle, no one on our side died. Albus Dumbledore knew what Voldemort--” Here, Draco flinched so violently that Potter’s hands slipped from his jaw. He had to fumble to grab his face again and force him steady. “--He knew what Voldemort asked of you and he made Severus Snape promise to finish the job. Okay? He knew. He knew and he made sure that you could get out alive.”

Draco couldn’t fathom how Potter had all this information. He wished desperately that he wouldn’t share it with him. It did nothing to assuage the feeling that blossomed like molten heat in his chest, climbing up his throat like bile. It had been so easy before to live his life quietly, kindly, hoping that each time he worked against Dark wizards with the Ministry that he was atoning for his role in all that had happened. Coming face to face with the leftover pieces of what he had helped break was intolerable. And he could not escape it.

Potter wouldn’t stop talking, though. “Mad-eye Moody died the night I needed to be moved from my aunt and uncle’s house to a safe-house after I turned seventeen. Tonks and Lupin died at the Battle. So did Ron’s brother.”

“If I hadn’t--” Draco swallowed. Potter stroked his jaw back and forth, back and forth, with those callused thumbs. “If I hadn’t let them in that night…”

“Dumbledore would still be dead,” Potter near-whispered. “Because it was always a part of the plan. Except you would be dead, too.”

“You’re making excuses for me,” Draco croaked. “Why?”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Potter said. “Seems like you didn’t get that a lot from the people around you. I had a lot of time to think about this, okay? Especially after--” Potter looked like he might have flushed. “--knowing you better. Everyone around me and Ron and Hermione told us the truth and everyone around you told you something… twisted and wrong and dark. And I can’t keep blaming a sixteen year old for believing what everyone had always told him was right.”

Draco didn’t know if that was right or true, but he let Potter pull him close all the same. He let Potter kiss him and it felt almost like being forgiven. It was the first kiss they had shared since before leaving America, their last soft moments stolen in the car park of the airport, feeling almost desperate. The kiss now was slow, not nearly as needy or burning. It was warm and a little damp, perhaps from the humiliating wetness that now clung to Draco’s lashes and dripped onto Potter’s cheeks. The kiss just after was salty and wet.

“I would like to apologize,” Draco said, clearing his throat and trying to get some semblance of his dignity back. “To Weasley and Granger, respectively. It seems only fair.”

Potter’s answering smile was a balm on the weight that threatened to crack Draco’s ribs. “Of course,” he said, hands dropping from Draco’s face to his lap, squeezing his knees.

“You could all come to mine for dinner,” Draco said, the idea running away from him. It seemed like a normal, proper thing to do-- to have dinner, to sit down, to talk. He couldn’t fathom doing it without Potter there, though. Even now, as Potter look at him with such tenderness, his thumbs stroking over the expensive fabric of his trousers, Draco worried that he might be denied. But he wasn’t. Instead, Potter drew himself level with Draco’s face once more and kissed him soundly on the mouth, one hand cupping the back of his head, fingers getting caught and tangled in the loosening plaits of Draco’s braid. 

Draco could drop to his knees then and there, he thought. Potter drew back before he could be overcome with the urge. “So,” Draco croaked. “Curry?”

Potter laughed, the sound of his voice so warm and familiar. If Draco closed his eyes, he could almost pretend they were back in America, in that isolated world that belonged only to them. He wished Potter would kiss him more, but he was already standing up from where he had knelt in front of Draco’s chair. He did hold his hands out, though, and offered himself as a steady pressure to help Draco stand when he took them. Their fingers laced through together, twisting, for just a moment, before Draco forced himself to drop them. 

“We don’t have to go if you’re not…” Potter hesitated. “I mean, if you want to skip it, that’s alright, too.”

“No, no,” Draco said, scrubbing one hand over his face. Then, thinking better of letting his hair stay as unwound as it was, he began to quickly pull the braid from its plaits, pushing the loose waves back off his face. “I was offered curry. I’m getting curry.”

The grin on Potter’s face was worth the weight of a thousand stones of remorse. It was bright like the faux-sun coming in through his window, like the shutters of light that came through the hotel blinds, like the glint of passing headlights on the other side of the highway. 

It was familiar and good.

III.

Dandelion made  _ confit de canard _ at Draco’s request and it wasn’t until ten minutes before Potter, Granger and Weasley were supposed to floo in that he realized that perhaps none of them even liked duck, or French cuisine at all.

For the past week, Draco had been agonizing over this dinner and he hadn’t once thought to ask Potter what menu he should serve. He had tried to make his flat as inoffensive as possible, removing any old regalia he had kept of his former house at Hogwarts, tucking away family photos that he kept around the sitting room, and even painstakingly stitching a new apron for Dandelion so that, should Granger catch sight of her, she looked just as doted on as she was.

Still, the  _ duck _ . Draco stared at the plates that Dandelion had put together and now kept heated with a warming charm, clasping his hands in front of his robes-- black, neutral, not his most expensive so as not to alienate Weasley and Granger. His small dining room had been set so that Draco would not be at the head of the table, all four of them along the sides and facing one another for the duration of the meal. Draco couldn’t be certain that he was doing this right. He knew pureblood customs and how to throw dinner parties for powerful wizards and what would be pleasing to men with questionable morals. 

Draco had no idea how to serve a meal that would act as a buffer to an apology long overdue. 

The sound of the Floo rushing to life sent Draco’s heart pounding in his throat. He glanced at the clock in the kitchen. They were  _ early _ . He tried not to allow his annoyance to show on his face as he swept into the sitting room, only to find Potter, alone, climbing out of his fireplace. “Oh,” Draco said, unable to mask his relief. “Thank goodness. I thought the others were early.”

“Yeah, I thought I might need to talk you down off a ledge,” Potter teased. Draco didn’t make the first move, but he did lean down, pleased, when Potter tucked a hand against his cheek and drew him in for a dry peck on the lips. When alone, behind closed doors, the kissing was happening with increased frequency. 

“I asked Dandelion to serve duck,” Draco said, when they parted. He checked the plaits of his braid with one hand for the tenth time that hour. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”   


“Duck sounds fine,” Potter assured. 

An uncertain look crossed Draco’s face, but he let Potter chat him down off that ledge indeed, until the Floo roared to life again, this time with his expected guests. He felt quite nauseous, his lips pressing together, his hands clasped behind him as Granger emerged first from the fireplace, her usually untameable brown curls pulled back into a braid not unlike his own. She wore Muggle clothes, a blue dress that looked quite pretty on her. Weasley wasn’t far behind, in Muggle clothes as well, though it seemed that his wife had a hand in dressing him, since his shirt matched the color of her dress nicely. 

“Oh, this is lovely,” Granger said, looking around his sparse sitting room. Draco thought she was being rather kind. After removing anything that might cause his guests to remember more vividly of his role in their childhoods, Draco thought his home looked rather pathetic, as if he had no interests or family or warmth in his life at all. How strange that that had been almost true before … well, before America. Before Potter, who stood now at his side as if this was a home they shared and he, too, was greeting their guests.

Weasley said nothing. He stood just behind his wife with his hands buried deep in his trousers pockets. He could see, underneath his suit jacket, his wand sticking up just out of the waist of his belt, within easy reach, as if he expected he might need to use it. 

“Welcome,” Draco said. He thought he sounded somewhere between too cold and too earnest. “Miss Granger. Mr. Weasley.”

“It’s Mrs. Weasley, now,” Weasley grunted more than spoke.

Draco was just saying, “Oh, of course--” when Granger said, “Oh, Ronald, stop. I kept my name,” she said the last part to Draco, who felt heat rising up his throat uncomfortably. 

“A point of contention,” Potter joked, which diffused the tension somewhat when Granger laughed. 

“It was kind of you to invite us to dinner,” Granger said. Her voice was warm but guarded. Draco imagined that it was a practiced tone of voice for her. It gave him the distinct impression that she was being nice, but that he should not delude himself that she was being friendly. 

“Of course,” Draco said. He had planned to have drinks, he had planned exactly what he was going to say, but it all went rushing out of his head now. He couldn’t remember anything he had painstakingly planned, but thankfully Potter seemed to be ready to be his buffer. He felt Potter nudge him with one elbow and he unstuck himself from his spot where he stood.

“Drinks?” He offered before taking the excuse to disappear into the kitchen and put himself back together. He poured the wine and with a wave of his wand, carried them floating on air behind him back into the sitting room. Potter had taken it upon himself to offer Granger and Weasley seats, the three of them having taken up space on his couch. It left Draco to the armchair, where he sat after everyone had been given a glass of wine. It would prime their palates for the duck once they were ready to eat, though Draco wasn’t sure the three of them cared about that in the least.

“So,” Draco said, softly. He spun his glass between his fingers by the stem, looking down at the swirling liquid intently. He felt incapable of lifting his gaze, though he could feel the way they all looked at him. Expectant. Draco had gotten Potter’s help in getting the two to agree to come to his home at all and he felt part of Potter’s bargain had been his proposed apology. He wished he had written down what he had wanted to say. 

“Hermione Granger,” Draco finally forced himself to say as he lifted his gaze to her. She sat up straighter, leaning forward a moment to place her glass on the coffee table. She gave him her full attention, though he could see Potter and Weasley both watching him: Weasley with contempt, Potter with something infinitely softer.

Draco lost his words once more. He sucked in a deep breath, filling his lungs until they hurt, and tried again. “I was deplorable to you,” he said. “And you still helped me. I’m sure no small part of that decision is that it would help Potter, too, but…” He swallowed around an uncomfortable lump in his throat. “For what it’s worth, if anything, I am  _ sorry _ . For a list too long to name.”

“I could think of a few things,” Weasley interjected.

“Name them,” Draco offered. “And for each one you’ll receive an apology, too.”

“Ron,” Granger chided softly. “This is  _ my _ apology. Wait your turn.”

Potter stifled a laugh, poorly.

“I didn’t make the right choices,” Draco said, grappling for the words that Potter had said about him, thinking that Potter knew much more able saying the right thing than he ever would. “There’s no excuse for it, nor any explanation that might make my choices less heinous than they were.”

“Draco,” Granger said. She leaned the short distance between herself and the armchair and covered one of his hands with her own. It was small and brown and so very warm. She squeezed him and he closed his fingers around her own, returning the pressure. Draco forced himself to look at her face and nothing else, perhaps too cowardly to see what he would discover in Weasley’s expression. “Of course I forgive you,” she said. “We were kids. It wasn’t our war.”

“Are you  _ kidding _ me?” Weasley burst out. Granger’s hand retreated, and Draco missed the warmth immediately. 

“Ron,” Granger hissed.

“No, no. It’s my turn now,” Weasley said, leaning forward on his elbows. Draco glanced, helpless, at Potter. He was watching Weasley, perhaps deciding when he had gone far enough and finding that, no, he would not stop him. Draco supposed that was fair. He had invited them here for this reason, after all. Weasley had his piece to say and Draco would not stop him from saying it. 

“Yes,” Draco said, squaring his shoulders a tad. “It is, Weasley.”

“Right, so, you almost  _ killed _ me,” Weasley said, setting his wine glass down on the coffee table as well. “And you almost killed Katie Bell. And you helped rat us out to Umbridge. And the many times you were a right git.” Weasley was holding up a new finger for each transgression. “And then that time you tried to make Harry fall of his broom. And letting Death Eaters into the castle.”

Draco winced, deciding to set his own glass down on the coffee table with the others. His hands had begun to shake, so he pressed them into his lap to hide the evidence. “I was wrong in all of them,” he said, hoping to get a word in before Weasley could start himself up again. Draco glances towards Potter and caught his eyes. The look he found there was reassuring. His eyes flickered back to Weasley, finding a scowl that was much less friendly. 

“I’m sorry,” Draco said, the words feeling rough in his throat. He didn’t like the look that Weasley was bearing down on him, but he supposed he deserved worse. He glanced at Granger then and found that she was giving him something like an encouraging smile. “For the things I said and the things I did.”

There wasn’t much more he could say than that. He hoped that his current quiet life was action enough that he was not the same as he had been. Weasley kept looking at him with that pinched, unpleasant expression. After a quiet moment, in which Weasley seemed perfectly content to let Draco squirm, he finally spoke again: “Well, I don’t forgive you.”

Draco expected as much. He tried not to let his stomach sink to the floor. “Okay,” he agreed.

“But I guess as long as you’re not trying to kill us anymore,” Weasley said, visibly grudging. “It’s alright for now.”

It was… certainly something. Draco felt the ridiculous urge to laugh but didn’t want to throw Weasley’s tentative agreement back in his face. “I can quite solemnly promise that I have no intention of trying to kill you,” Draco said, holding up one hand. “You truly have my word on that.”

This time Potter  _ did _ laugh and the tension in the room felt like it melted away. They finished their wine, Draco happy to let Potter lead the conversation, roping Granger and Weasley into talking about the latest Ministry changes, what Ginny Weasley was up (Draco learned that she played for the Holyhead Harpies) and other things that seemed mundane to them to chat about, but felt monumental to Draco in that moment. 

Eventually, they move to the dining room where the food awaited. It was well received. Granger had visited France with her parents (she told him so as she complimented his choice of wine to go with the dish) and Weasley wasn’t fussed about what he ate, apparently, by the way he nearly inhaled the plate along with the duck. 

Granger asked polite questions about what Draco filled his days with lately. Draco felt his answers were mildly underwhelming: he went to work, he came home, he read a bit if it suited him, but otherwise not much of anything. Of course, his days were different now, filled with a warmth he had never thought himself capable of having. The stolen hour with Potter every day during their lunch time felt was if it were building off where they had left their relationship in America. It felt, every day, as if Draco were stitching sunshine into the dreary tapestry of his life. He found himself looking forward to his workdays in the office, no longer feeling as if he were some damned secret to be kept locked away at the end of his long hall. 

“Do you still fly?” Granger asked, politely, the same question Draco had longed to ask Potter when they had passed the Quidditch shop in Lilith's Junction. 

“No,” he admitted. “Not really.”

“We should go flying,” Potter suggested, flashing a grin. “Two-side Quidditch? Ron’s parents have a practice pitch behind their house.”

Draco thought it was rather bold of Potter to invite Draco to Weasley’s family home without his permission, but it dawned quickly on Draco that these were Potter’s family. This was with whom he had spent his youth. Weasley’s family was linked with Potter in ways that Draco could never hope to know or understand, and that Potter extending this invitation to him was no different than Draco extending an invitation to his own family home. Though, he imagined that he would never return to the Manor, much less invite Potter and his friends to visit. 

Draco expected Weasley to protest but he did not. In fact, he seemed pleased with the idea of a game of two-side Quidditch, though it felt more like he was ignoring Draco’s possible presence rather than accepting it. Still, it was better than outright refusal or hostility, so Draco wasn’t going to complain. 

The rest of the meal went well. Nothing tremendous happened. When it was over, Draco walked Weasley and Granger to the Floo. He shook Granger’s hand and gave Weasley a tentative nod. When they stepped into the fireplace and left, swallowed by green flames, it took Draco a moment to fully realize that Potter was still in his flat, standing in the doorway of the sitting room. When Draco looked over his shoulder at him, something bright shone in Potter’s eyes behind his glasses. Draco convinced himself that it was just a trick of the candles on his lenses.

“That went well,” Potter said, pushing away from the door frame and crossing the room. Draco turned fully to face him and allowed himself to be taken into Potter’s arms. What’s more, he went willingly, his arms looping around Potter’s shoulders. He felt roaming palms along the seams of his robes. “You did really well.”

Draco felt his cheeks warm and his ducked his face so that he wouldn’t have to look at the glowing expression on Potter’s. “It could have gone worse,” he agreed. 

It felt ages and ages since their quiet nights, skin on skin, in the hotel. When Potter drew him down for a kiss now, the knowledge that they were alone in his flat lit Draco up from the inside out. He couldn’t stop himself from pressing close, seeking a kiss with more heat and substance than the gentle peck that Potter had started with. 

“You should show me your flat,” Potter said when they finally broke apart. Draco’s lips felt swollen and his knees jittery, the only thing keeping him properly upright being Potter’s arms that had cinched around his waist. It took him a moment to understand the request, though even when he did he couldn’t fathom why Potter would want a tour of his flat just that second. 

“Why?” Draco asked, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice. 

“I’d like to see your bedroom, that’s all.”

Heat rose to Draco’s face as realization dawned on him. His chest tightened and he felt lightheaded as he pulled back more fully to peer down at the boyish grin that had taken over Potter’s face. He could do that.  _ They _ could do that. It was, after all, a natural continuation of the small world they had built together in America. This thing that they never discussed, that Potter thought so natural that it required no words, felt infinitely fragile in its newness. He could not remember anything in recent history that he had wanted more-- not a residual want instilled in him by his father, but a want born wholly of his own selfish desires. 

“Yes,” Draco said after a moment, voiceless, barely a whisper. Potter’s grin only widened now that they were on the same page. It happened with surprising frequency, as if Potter’s mind and his own were tuned into a wireless network that only they shared. He slipped from Potter’s arms and led the way through his flat, not even bothering to offer an imitation of a tour. Potter was on his heels, nearly pressing against his spine as he led the way down the hall towards the back bedroom that he had made his own.

There he had hidden all of his Slytherin regalia, and he felt a little embarrassed now to have his things just slung over his old trunk at the end of the bed and the chair in the corner and on top of his desk. The family pictures he had taken off the sitting room walls were now piled messily on his bedside table and he couldn’t find it in himself to stop Potter as he went to observe them, picking up each frame with care. Draco watched as photos of himself in his youth flashed-- waving at the camera from a vacation in Nice with Mother, a picture of himself on the day he got his Hogwarts letter, a small, unsmiling Draco standing next to Father during Christmas. 

Potter consumed them silently, setting each frame aside with care. “I had them hanging up in the sitting room,” Draco said, unable to stand the sudden shift in air. “But I thought it might be insensitive, considering.”

“We don’t pick our family,” Potter said after a minute, looking up from the last picture in the pile: Draco on his sixteenth birthday, before the Dark Lord had chosen him for the mission he was meant to fail, smiling stupidly at the camera, Mother just behind him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He’d gotten a new broom that year, one he would ride less than half a dozen times, and only once in a Quidditch match. He wished he could go back and warn himself, tell himself what was in store. 

“You did,” Draco pointed out.

“Didn’t much have a choice.”

Draco turned away so that Potter would not see him flinch. “I’ve ruined the mood,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Draco.” Potter’s voice was so infinitely tender that it made Draco want to rip his own skin off so that perhaps he could press something closer than flesh into Potter’s arms-- muscle and bone and the ever-so tender skin of their lungs and their beating hearts. Draco looked again, forced himself to be brave enough to look again. Potter’s face was not cloying with pity, but rather something softer. Warmth embedded everything inch of his expression, from the softness of his eyes to the gentle curl of his lips. Since Draco had begun seeing him each day, he had not grown back the stubble he had sported during their adventure in America. Strangely, Draco missed it. He almost said something, but kept his lips shut. 

“Come here,” Potter said and Draco went, wordless, boneless, gliding into his arms and went into the kiss that was offered to him. Potter’s hands wound around him, his fingers going to the buttons of his robes, plucking each one down his chest until the black fabric parted and was pushed off his shoulders. It fell noisily to the floor in a heavy  _ fwump _ . Potter’s restless hands refused to stop there and it was only when the buttons of Draco’s dress shirt were half open did he allow himself to fumble for the folds of Potter’s own clothes. 

They undressed one another, Draco’s skin feeling too bright, too warm, needing too much. When they climbed into the bed it was fumbling, unwilling to release one another, unwilling to part lips. Draco’s cool sheets slid along his back as he sunk into them, head just missing the pillows as Harry climbed over him, pressing their bodies together-- hips to hips, chest to chest, mouths sliding, wet and distracted. It felt as if his body were primed for Harry’s touch. He felt immediately dizzy with the speed of blood filling his cock. 

It was like before, Harry’s hips pressing between his thighs (welcomed) and Harry’s cock sliding along his own, a steady, thrumming pressure (wanted). Draco’s mind buzzed with things that he wanted, things he had allowed himself to ruminate over in the weeks that they had been apart. He wanted things he had never allowed himself to consider. Draco sunk his fingers into the lengthening mess of Harry’s dark hair, pulling his mouth from where he had begun to suck against the skin of his jaw. 

“I want—“ The words got lost somewhere. Draco kissed Harry instead.

“Yes?” Harry urged. He drew back, propping himself up on his elbows. “Tell me.”

Draco looked up at him and felt helplessly lost. He wanted to wrap himself up in Harry until he could not distinguish his own skin from Harry’s. He wanted to crack his own ribs open and invite Harry to make a home inside of him. Those were things he couldn’t say, though. Those were things that felt perhaps a little too on the cusp of crazy. He swallows thickly and searches, desperately, for the words.

“I want to have sex.”

“Okay.”

“With you.”

“Right,” Harry said, laughing a little. “We have been.”

“Proper,” Draco said firmly.

“Proper,” Harry agreed, still laughing, but softer. “Whatever you want.”

That thought sent Draco’s mind racing again, snatches of images, of things he could not fathom to name. Harry could, though, it seemed, because he was moving up and off him, bending over the edge of the bed to dig for his wand in the mess of clothes they’d left on the floor. Draco’s mind went  _ dizzy _ , knowing instinctively what the wand was for, what spell Harry would conjure— every red-blooded wizarding boy learned that spell, coveted, whispering it between one another, flushed and embarrassed and laughing. Wordless, Potter made his hand  _ so slick _ , cast his wand aside and then his hand was between them, between Draco’s legs, further back, press against him where he had never been touched, secret, just for him, just for Harry—

“Okay?” Potter breathed as he bent over him, one slick finger pressing  _ in _ , slowly, carefully. It did not feel as momentous as Draco thought it ought to. It felt, if anything, like the simple continuation of their kissing and schoolboy rutting. Harry settled half on him, half sprawled at his side, pressing in, curling, dragging sounds out of Draco’s mouth with each movement. He had  _ done _ this before and Draco didn’t want to know who with, or how many times. He wanted only to reap the benefits of Harry’s experience, to learn it all for himself so that they might do  _ this _ over and over and over. 

Harry kissed him with slow, sliding lips as one finger became two, sending an interesting array of warm sparks down Draco’s spine, into his skin, beneath his bones. Draco’s hands moved restlessly over Harry’s own skin, nails biting into his ribs, drawing him closer with every heaving breath. Between them, Draco’s cock stood heavy and hard, leaking onto his stomach with each teasing curl of Harry’s fingers inside of him. Draco could feel Harry’s cock, too— thick and hot, rubbing up against his hip bone. Draco dropped his hand and curled his fingers around the damp head of Harry’s cock, thumb gliding against the slit. He felt Harry exhale a moan against his jaw. 

“Let me?” Harry breathed, rocking his cock into Draco’s hand, curling his fingers deeper, dragging a sharp moan out of Draco’s throat. 

“Yes,” Draco whispered. “I want that. With you.”

“Okay,” Harry murmured. “Just relax.”

“You’re making me nervous when I’m not,” Draco said, fidgeting as Harry pulls his fingers out slowly, teasing them against Draco’s entrance. 

“Sorry.” A warm, smacking kiss against his cheek. “But you’re going to want to anyway.”

Harry got himself between Draco’s legs and it was so good, the stretch of his thighs around Harry’s hips, the feel of his cock nudging between his legs, deeply intimate. Draco closed his eyes, unable to look between them, to see what was happening as Harry maneuvered his cock in his hand, pressed against him- against, and then  _ in _ and  _ in _ , so slow, skin dragging on skin. It was almost uncomfortable, but Harry’s arms came around him, wrapping him close, pressing him to the bed by his torso and his hips, it was hard to concentrate on anything other than how much he liked being covered with him. 

“Okay?” Harry asked, licking Draco’s neck. He was so feral, Draco thought. Feral and messy and  _ gross _ and Draco reveled in it. 

“Yeah,” Draco breathed. Harry  _ moved _ and it was better. Draco sucked in a breath, exhaling a soft noise as Harry  _ fucked _ him. That’s what it was— fucking, plain and simple, his hips driving slick and steady into him,  _ into him.  _ Draco found it quite impossible to keep quiet, just then. Each inhale was paired with an exhaling sound, punched right out of his chest. Draco curled his arms around Harry’s shoulders, clutched him, pressed his face against his throat and make inexcusably embarrassing sounds right against his skin. 

Their bodies pressed so desperately close that Draco’s cock dragged along Harry’s stomach. Harry moved with a more deliberate rhythm and they became two bodies seeking pleasure from one another, desperate and greedy to be pleased. Harry shifted, sitting up, tucking his knees under Draco’s thighs, changing the angle. It was better and better, but it left his cock without pressure, allowed his skin to cool from the warmth of Harry’s body draped over him. 

“Fuck,” Draco gasped when Harry pushed his thighs open wider, made room for himself to  _ fuck him _ , to chase his own pleasure. Draco’s was suddenly incidental, but intense, Harry’s cock driving inside of him, the feeling that built in his hips growing more and more intense. Until it felt like Draco would convulse or combust or both. 

“Good?” Harry asked. He was damp with sweat at the temples, grinning, his hands sliding down to Draco’s hips, pulling him closer. Draco wanted to laugh but he couldn’t stop the other sounds he was making long enough to do so. Harry’s hand moved from his hip to his cock and he grabbed him there, sliding his curling fingers up, around the head, back down and then again— That, combined with the seemingly endless way that Harry was determined to drive his cock into him, was Draco’s undoing. 

“Yes—“ Draco gasped. “That. Please.”

“This?” And Harry did it again and again. Not slower but not faster either. 

“Potter—“

“No.” Harry leaned over him then, dropped his cock from his hand and planned his elbows on either side of Draco’s head. The movement had the effect of forcing Draco’s hips up, his torso to curl, the angle of Harry’s cock to reach inside of him  _ so fucking good.  _

_ “ _ Say my name,” Harry said, breathless. 

Draco, who thought he might do anything just then to get a fist around his cock, complied. “Harry.”

“Again?” It was a request this time, so breathless and desperate that Draco couldn’t deny him even if he wanted to. 

“Harry.” It came out punctuated with a moan, followed by Harry’s lips on his own, messy and biting. Harry’s hand worked between them and then, finally, his fingers wrapped around Draco’s cock, pulling, rubbing his thumb against his slit, messy and dripping, fucking, still fucking, the rhythm gone messy and lopsided and yes  _ yes yesyesyes— _

Draco head began to pound with how hard he screwed his eyes shut, back straining as he tried to arch deeper into the feeling of coming in Harry’s hand, of coming on his cock, of coming with Harry inside of him. Harry dragged his mouth along Draco’s neck, panting, fucking, fucking his hips, dragging Draco’s climax out and out until he felt overwhelmed and over sensitive. When Harry came, too, Draco could  _ feel _ it,  _ inside _ him.

It was sex, proper. When they pulled apart, Draco felt bereft of Harry’s presence. He wanted him back over him, on him,  _ in _ him. Harry didn’t get up for a flannel this time; he wrapped himself around Draco instead, drawing him into an exhausted embrace, pressing tired kisses to his jaw, his shoulder. The clock on the wall read only half nine, but Draco could imagine himself just laying, dozing, emerging from sleep in cozy waves.

They fought to get the sheets out from under their hips, laughing, refusing to get up to turn down the bed. When they were finally tucked beneath the duvet, Draco rolled to face Potter more fully. They breathed and spoke nothing, eyes tracing one another’s face. Draco reached out in the low light and thumbed Potter’s swollen lips. Potter kissed the pad of his thumb in return, took it between his teeth, lapped at the skin. Draco drew him in, thumb hooked against his teeth, and kissed his eyelids. 

“How was that?” Potter finally asked, boyish, chuckling. “Proper, right?”

Pleasantly sore, Draco stretched himself out under the sheets and reveled in the way Potter could not seem to resist running a hand all over his skin. “Exceedingly,” Draco agreed. “I think we might even get good at it, eventually.”

Potter laughed, a sharp bark of surprise, and his stroking hand turned into fingers scrabbling against Draco’s ribs. He twisted and howled in protest. He couldn’t help the feeling that burst open in his chest. It felt inevitable, like a flower growing from the old soil that had once laid his rib cage bare. He wanted nothing more than to allow it to be nurtured into a blossom, a bloom worthy of the Manor gardens. 

With Potter, like this, it felt possible. 

IV.

It was not often that Draco allowed himself to sleep in. His room was abnormally warm that morning. It felt sweltering, his skin tacky with sweat. As he stirred, he felt the bed shifting and then a warm, bare arm coming to wrap around his middle. Skin upon skin, Draco’s face burned with the memory of the night previous, his heart skipping in his chest. He pressed his face into his pillow, hiding his eyes from the sheets of sunlight coming in from between the parted curtains. He felt more than heard the low rumble of stirring noises in Potter’s chest before tired lips made lackluster kisses against the yolk of his shoulder. 

“Morning,” Draco croaked. He turned his face to meet Potter’s. He peeled his eyes open, pleased to find Potter’s still closed, his face still relaxed. He looked softer without his glasses and Draco allowed himself to drink in his fill of the sight. 

“Morning,” Potter rumbled back, lips barely moving, more of a slur of consonants than a word. 

When his eyes peeled open, Draco almost looked away. But he forced himself to lay still and meet Potter’s eyes, enjoying the few long moments before they focused on the world around him, muzzy and far away. The green stood out so brilliant, so much warmer, brighter, than the green that had dominated Draco’s youth. This close, Draco was privy to the way his pupils changed with the bright light that spilled across them from the windows, growing into focused pinpricks as they landed on Draco’s face.

Draco allowed himself the luxury of lifting one hand from between them and stroking his fingertips along the planes and arches of Potter’s face. He pressed the tip of his index finger to Potter’s brows, watching as he closed his eyes. Draco traced Potter’s features with the pad of his finger, ending with lightly brushing each gently-laid eyelash in turn. When he dropped his hand back to the sheets between them, Potter opened his eyes against. 

“You look nice like this,” Potter said, his voice gravelly with sleep.

“Like what?” Draco asked, brows knitting together just so.

“Like you’ve been well shagged,” Potter said, seemingly unable to stop himself from breaking into a grin. 

Pink bloomed over Draco’s face and he groaned, swatting Potter’s arm. “Shut  _ up _ . I should never have let you. Look at you, you’re so pleased with yourself.”

Potter laughed and the whole bed shook with it. His arms came around Draco’s waist in a cinch, tugging him close so that Draco couldn’t squirm his way out of bed in a strop. They tussled in the sheets until Draco, tired and sore, promptly gave in and allowed himself to be held, Potter’s chest to his back now. He curled himself as small as he could so that he could fit neatly into the curve of Potter’s body. 

“I think we ought to discuss it now,” Draco said after long moments of silence in which Potter pressed lazy kisses to the arch of Draco’s wing bones. 

“Discuss what?” Potter murmured, distracted. 

“This,” Draco said. “Us.”

Potter’s lips stilled. He hooked his chin against Draco’s shoulder instead. Draco could feel the gentle puffs of his breath against the loose hairs around his face, against the apple of his cheek. Each place he had never considered feeling another person’s breath. It was intimate in a way that seemed, ultimately, healing. Not wanting to disturb their cozy embrace, Draco tugged one of Potter’s arms around him so that he wouldn’t try to untangle them for a face to face conversation. 

“Alright,” Potter agreed. “What about us?”

Draco chewed on his bottom lip. His chest suddenly felt tight with nerves. He scrabbled his fingers against the soft skin of Potter’s wrist. “Would you consider us to be…” Draco paused, trying to come up with a word that didn’t sound quite so juvenile. Yet, nothing came to mind. Exhaling, Draco finally said, “Dating?”

Potter was quiet behind him for what felt like an incredibly long and unnerving beat. He said, “I thought that was obvious.”

“Well,” Draco said, snapping the word around his teeth. “It would have been if you weren’t apparently allergic to using words to describe your intentions.”

“What  _ else _ would we be doing?”

Draco squirmed in his arms then, uncoiling himself so that he could turn over and face him. Potter’s held an expression that was equal parts annoyed and confused and Draco must be quite ill, because he found it endearing. 

“You never  _ said _ ,” Draco insisted. He knew that Potter’s annoyance was not, strictly speaking, with him, because his arms came back around Draco’s waist once he had settled facing him in the sheets. “How was I to know?”

Potter’s expression softened. He smoothed one hand up Draco’s spine, up, up, over his shoulders, until his fingers sank soothingly into his hair, his fingertips rubbing at his scalp. “Yes, Draco. I would consider us to be dating.” 

An immediate flood of delight shot from Draco’s brain all the way through his nervous system. He had never dated before, not really, not real dating. There had been a war on, after all. And then his life had been consumed with trying to stay alive, trying to navigate his childhood home that had been headquarters to such a vile creature of a man, that had turned every familiar room into a den of distrust and fear. 

The juxtaposition of those memories now with what lay before him-- Potter, his skin warm in the fanning sunlight, his eyes crinkled at this edges. It was a life that was far behind him now-- physically, emotionally, in time and space, and each second Draco spent with Potter sent it further and further away.

“I think I like that,” Draco said, after a moment. It had the intended effect of causing a grin to dart across Potter’s face. 

“Do you?” Potter teased.

“I don’t think your friends will,” Draco pointed out. “Or anyone else who has an unnatural interest in your private life.”

“Sod anyone else,” Potter insisted softly. “My friends aren’t part of this relationship, either.”

“They’re your family,” Draco pointed out. “The ones you chose. Shouldn’t their opinion matter a little?”

“Not on who I decide to shag,” Potter laughed. Draco’s skin flushed and he gave him a shove in the shoulder. 

“Be serious,” he begged. “I’m a social pariah. Think of what the dailies will have to say.”

“The dailies have been printing lies about me since I was a fourteen year old,” Potter said, nonplussed. Draco’s stomach turned to unpleasant bugs all squirming on top of one another. “I’m not concerned with what reporters or anyone else has to say about who I’m seeing. I  _ want _ to be seeing you and you seem like you want to be seeing me, so I don’t understand why you’re trying to hard not to let us  _ see each other _ .”

Draco pressed his lips together in a thin line, exhaling harshly through his nose. “I’m worried you might come to regret it,” Draco admitted. “And that by the time you do, I’ll have already become attached.”

“You’re not attached now?” Potter asked, his tone softening, teasing. 

“ _ More _ attached,” Draco amended. 

“I’m not going to regret it,” Potter said. “I lived my whole life having everyone making decisions for me. I can make a few of my own pretty competently, you know.”

Sensing that he was being reproached, Draco forced himself not to push the matter any further. “So then you’re well prepared for the negative attention pursuing a relationship with me will bring.”

“I can’t be worse than when I was declared  _ Undesirable Number One _ ,” Potter said confidently. “In fact, I welcome some bad press. No more applause from the daily every time I scratch my--”

“Okay, alright,” Draco said quickly, covering Potter’s lips with his fingers. “I get it.”

“Listen,” Potter said, after he had thoroughly kissed each and every one of Draco’s fingertips. “I like hanging out with you. And kissing you. And…” Here he paused and Draco understood by the way his hands began to wander again. “And I don’t think we should be in the practice of denying ourselves harmless wants anymore. The war is over. You can stop punishing yourself, now.”

“I like you more than I have allowed myself to like anyone, ever, for any reason,” Draco admitted in a rush of air, afraid that if he kept it in the moment he thought the words they might never come out. It felt easy to admit it to Potter, who watched him as if the words themselves were tangible morsels that he could devour. 

“I like that,” Potter said, voice low. Heat bloomed in Draco’s stomach. 

“I don’t think I had the healthiest example of relationships,” Draco said, forging on before he could let the tone of Potter’s voice distract him too much. “Mother stayed with Father out of necessity, I think. Purebloods don’t get divorced. Husbands and wives die under mysterious circumstances. I’m sure you’re familiar with Mrs. Zabini.” 

Potter laughed softly, but did not interrupt. For that, Draco was grateful.

“Mother gave Father an heir and I think that must have spared her. I don’t think he was capable of love, merely an imitation of it. It was Mother who endured You-Know-Who’s wrath when she begged him to reconsider choosing me as his tool to kill Dumbledore. It was Mother who begged me to allow her to help, Mother who almost got caught trying to find a way to smuggle me out of the country.” Draco found that once he began, he could not stop talking-- the tangents of his thoughts flittering across one another, barely connected, synapses misfiring. He had never told anyone the deepest intimacies of his homelife. Potter was then a captive audience, listening, eyes tracking Draco’s face as if he could track his very thoughts. 

“But for all she was capable of loving me, I don’t think Mother held much warmth for Father outside of knowing that he could provide her the life she was accustomed to living. The Black and Malfoy lines were as pure as one could get, I imagine. Helped along, of course, by a bit of inbreeding.” Draco smiled wryly. Potter’s hands began a soothing rhythm along his skin, up along his back, down along his ribs, fingertips skimming over bumps and scars and the ghosts of faded bruises. “Their marriage wasn’t  _ arranged _ , per se, but it was deeply encouraged and any other pursuits they might have had scared off by my grandparents. I grew up watching Mother resent Father more and more every day.”

“No wonder you turned out the way you are,” Potter said, though not unkindly. Draco couldn’t help but smile, tight and without humor. It was true.  _ No wonder _ , indeed. 

“I never knew what to look for,” Draco said, closing his eyes when Potter brought his hand up to comb his loose hair off his face. “I still don’t. I don’t know what dating looks like.”

“Kind of like this,” Potter said softly.

“Oh,” Draco said, dryly. “Good. Then I’ve figured it out.”

“You were always clever,” Potter agreed. 

“What I mean to say is that you’ll have to tell me if I’m making a mess of it,” Draco said, a frown knitting his brows together. Potter smoothed the crease away with the pad of his thumb. 

“I think you’re doing great,” Potter whispered. “I don’t think any of us know what we’re doing, really. Even Ron mucks up and he and Hermione have been together for ages.”

Draco’s smile turned soft and he laughed, ducking his face against Potter’s shoulder. He rested his forehead there, breathing, just breathing, feeling Potter breath with him, feeling his hands roaming the expanse of his back, his shoulders, down his hips, his arms. Everywhere, as if no part of his body were untouchable.

Potter’s fingers curled around his wrist, lifting it, twisting to expose his forearm. The gnarled scar seemed to stand out even more in the fine light of the morning, dark in contrast to his pale skin. He touched there, too. His thumb slid against the scar. Draco didn’t dare lift his face to look. Finally, Potter released him and pulled him closer, gathering him up in his arms. It was welcome. 

They breathed in sync with one another as early morning ticked rhymically towards late, nothing in front of them but a quiet Saturday. 

“It’s hard to decide what my aunt and uncle felt for each other,” Potter finally said, after a moment. Draco held his breath and dared not interrupt, feeling almost starving for Potter to tell him more, an intimate look into the story of the Boy Who Lived, already being made into children’s books with moving pictures. “Sometimes it felt like they were storybook villains made up to torture me. Maybe they loved each other, I don’t know. Certainly didn’t feel like they loved me.”

Draco forced himself not to allow any ill thoughts of Muggles to cross his mind. Potter was, after all, recounting a story not dissimilar from Draco’s own, and his parents had not one drop of Muggle blood in them. 

“But my real parents,” Potter said, his tone warming with a smile. Draco drew his face again from Potter’s shoulder, greedy to see the way his expression lit up. He wasn’t disappointed. “I don’t think two people could have loved each other more. I wish I could have seen it.”

“I wish you could have, too,” Draco said softly. 

“But Mrs. and Mr. Weasley are a close second,” Potter said, laughing. “And I reckon Hermione’s parents were alright. Her and Ron, they know how to love. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

The words warmed Draco from the inside out. He smiled and tucked his face against Potter’s chest. “I want to,” he agreed. 

“So let me show you,” Potter murmured, mouth against his temple. 

It became easier and easier with each slow inhale. Draco drew back just enough to look Potter in the eye— green on grey, a soft meadow on an overcast day. “Okay,” Draco said, finally. “Yes.”

“Yes?” Potter repeated, grinning. It was like the corners of Potter’s mouth were attached by the strings to Draco’s own. They grinned, stupid and giddy, at one another. When Potter drew him in for another kiss, Draco allowed the nerves and fear to wash over him just once, like the tide, and then retreat. He felt firmly planted in the sand, no longer adrift and slave to the ocean waves. What’s more, Potter at his side felt only natural, as if he had known all along that this is where they would end up and everything he had done between then and now had only been a poor attempt at denying himself something that felt so good and right and grounding. 

When they parted, Draco breathed and it felt like his first breath, born anew. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest with you: I have read all 7 Harry Potter books and NOTHING else. I don't know what Joanne has to say about American Wizards and frankly ... I don't care ! I made it all up myself and had fun doing it. I also know very little about Virginia. I'm just out here to have a good time!


End file.
